Oral Answers to Questions

SCOTLAND

The Secretary of State was asked—

Whisky Duty

Alistair Carmichael: What estimate he has made of the cost to the Scottish whisky industry of introducing a duty paid stamping scheme.

Alistair Darling: The Government have made it clear that we will proceed with tax stamps for spirits if the industry is unable to put forward an alternative proposal that would be as effective in tackling spirits fraud.

Alistair Carmichael: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer; it may be an answer to something, but it was certainly not an answer to the question that I asked.
	The estimate of the Scotch Whisky Association is that the Chancellor's proposal will constitute an extra cost to the Scotch whisky industry of about £280 million. In return for that, the industry will get a system that is so effective that the United States and Greece got rid of it. The system was also considered by Belgium, Germany and Norway and rejected. Will the Secretary of State make 2004 the year that his Department does something useful for Scotland and the Scotch Whisky Association, and will he ask his right hon. Friend the Chancellor to think again?

Alistair Darling: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, in the last six Budgets, duty on Scotch whisky has been frozen, which has brought considerable benefit. That did not happen under previous Governments; it has happened because of the decisions taken by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. The House knows that the problem is that spirits fraud has been rising year on year. It is estimated that about 16 per cent. of the spirits market has been subject to fraud, amounting to about £600 million. After many years of discussing those things with the industry, the Chancellor has said that we must do something about the problem. He believes that stamps offer the best way forward, but has made it clear that the door is open to the industry if it can propose something more effective. I understand that the industry has been speaking to Customs and Excise, but I am sure that most Members accept that no Government can put up with losing nearly £600 million a year because of fraud. That money could be usefully invested in services and other things. Something has to be done about the problem and if the hon. Gentleman has any good ideas, we should be happy to hear from him.

Brian H Donohoe: The Secretary of State will know that I am the secretary of the all-party group on Scotch whisky and that, along with colleagues on both sides of the House, I have made strong representations to the Government and to the Chancellor to ask them to try to find alternatives to the stamp duty. What part will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State take in any representations that are made, in relation both to industry management and to the trade unions?

Alistair Darling: I know of my hon. Friend's long-standing interest in whisky—I confess that I, too, take an interest in the subject from time to time.
	The Chancellor and all Ministers are acutely aware of the importance of the Scotch whisky industry to the Scottish economy, but we are also acutely aware of the fact that fraud in the spirits market has been growing and that when we are losing nearly £600 million of revenue through fraud, something needs to be done. Discussions have been held over a number of years and the Chancellor has said that he will introduce the new stamping system unless the industry can come up with something better that is more effective. As I said, the door is open to the industry; if there is a better way of stopping that fraud, we will discuss it.

Angus Robertson: Can the Secretary of State name even one leading figure in the Scotch whisky industry who is in favour of the proposal?

Alistair Darling: It is not surprising that people in the industry are reluctant to take responsibility for ensuring that tax is paid. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that the Government have two duties. First, we must do everything that we can to encourage industries, but, secondly, no Government can stand by and watch their revenue being systematically removed owing to fraud. I should have thought that the nationalists would accept that.

Michael Connarty: The Secretary of State will know that the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) was not a Member when we persuaded the Treasury, in the last Parliament, not to bring in strip stamps. At that time, there was no doubt that the industry association and all those involved in the whisky and spirit industry accepted that there was massive fraud and that we had to do something about it. It is clear that we have to do something, but do we have to bring in this inefficient system that has already been used abroad and abandoned? I believe that the association will meet the Chancellor in February, so will the Secretary of State lobby at that time for a much broader survey of exactly how much fraud is going on? What is the source of the fraud and can we find a better way of dealing with it than strip stamping the bottles, which will cost small producers such as Whyte and MacKay in my constituency a disproportionate amount of money?

Alistair Darling: As I said, the Chancellor has made it clear that he is happy to discuss with the industry other ways to combat fraud. The problem is that those discussions have been going on for some years now and the amount of fraud has been growing year on year. We have reached a stage where, whether the fraud is £600 million or £100 million either side of that figure, an increasing amount of money is going missing from the Exchequer. Of course, there may be other ways to deal with the matter—that is what the Chancellor said—but, unless the industry can come up with another means that is just as effective and workable, he sees no alternative but to introduce the tax stamps. To do nothing and pretend that the problem will somehow go away seems foolish because all the evidence shows that fraud is increasing year by year. Let no one forget that we have frozen the duty on whisky for six successive Budgets. The Chancellor has said that he intends to continue that for the rest of this Parliament, but he can do so only if we do something about the fraud that is being perpetrated in the industry.

Peter Duncan: Given the Government's borrowing requirement of £120 billion for the years to 2006, one might have thought that they would want to encourage one of Scotland's most successful trade and revenue-generating industries to fund their burgeoning deficit. Did the Chancellor consult the Secretary of State before the pre-Budget report and the announcement paving the way for this damaging whisky tax stamp proposal? If so, why did he not veto it?

Alistair Darling: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not expressed any concern about the fraud that is being practised on the spirits industry. As for Budget deficits, he was not a Member at the time, but those of us who have been Members for some years will remember that Government borrowing rose to astronomical levels when the Conservative party was in office. The borrowing that we have today is not only manageable, but a small proportion of the amount borrowing compared with our competitor countries, never mind what happened in the past.
	In relation to this proposal, I have said that the industry is crucial to Scotland, which is why we have frozen the duty for six successive Budgets—something that did not happen under the Tory Government—and I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman accepted that, if there is fraud on this scale, we have to do something about it. To ignore it would be grossly irresponsible.

Housing Finance

Mark Lazarowicz: What assessment he has made of the implications for Scotland of the Miles report on housing finance.

Anne McGuire: The interim report by David Miles on the UK mortgage market was published on 9 December 2003. The Government will consider it carefully and look forward to the final report, which is due by the 2004 Budget. It would therefore be premature to make any assessment specifically for Scotland.

Mark Lazarowicz: When the Government come to consider the final Miles report, and also the Barker report, will she make it clear to the Treasury that the problems associated with volatility and shortage of supply in the housing market affect not just the south-east of England, but places such as Edinburgh as well? Will she use her good offices with the Treasury to ensure that, if any pilot scheme emerges from the reports, my constituents in Edinburgh, who often have difficulty affording housing in the city, will benefit from those reports?

Anne McGuire: Many of us share my hon. Friend's understanding of the hot spots in the housing market in Edinburgh, and even my own constituency of Stirling faces significant difficulties. I reassure him that the Scottish Executive are fully engaged with the Miles report. In fact, I hope that his comments about including Scotland in any pilot areas that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor may embark on will be fully taken into account.

John Thurso: In his interim report, Professor Miles states that there is
	"a poor understanding of risk"
	among mortgage borrowers. Does the Minister accept that it is often the most vulnerable in society who have both the largest amount of debt and possibly the least appreciation of the associated risks, and that that problem is shown by the report to be worse in Scotland than in the UK as a whole? What research will the Government undertake to consider that aspect of the question?

Anne McGuire: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. One of the difficulties, particularly with those on fixed or lower incomes, is perhaps that they do not appreciate the full risk that they are taking on, partly because of poor advice when they take on that debt. The Miles report is only an interim one and has made no recommendations, and David Miles has said that he wants to discuss issues related to some of the points that the hon. Gentleman makes with the Financial Services Authority and the Office of Fair Trading.

Cross-Border Health Issues

Nicholas Winterton: What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues about cross-border health issues.

Alistair Darling: I have regular discussions with ministerial colleagues on a wide range of subjects.

Nicholas Winterton: Unlike that answer, I would like to be helpful to the Government. The Secretary of State will be aware that the Labour Government supported—and many Scottish Members voted for—foundation hospitals for England, but that the Scottish Executive took a different decision. Should we not be seeking the provision of the best possible health care for all people of the United Kingdom? If foundation hospitals are supposed to provide that for the people of England, will he share with me the reason why the Scottish Executive reached a different decision and opposed foundation hospitals in Scotland?

Alistair Darling: They did so because they were entitled to take that decision. The whole point and consequence of devolution in Scotland, Wales and London is that it is open to the devolved bodies to take different decisions on devolved matters. That is a logical consequence of devolution, and it is why the Scottish Executive took that decision.

Gavin Strang: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the publication of Scotland's proposed sexual health strategy? While the number of people dying from AIDS in Scotland has been dramatically reduced, is he aware that those who survive face a growing threat from resistance to anti-HIV drugs? Will he encourage Ministers in the Department of Health to consult their Scottish counterparts on that and other HIV issues, not least because the number of people diagnosed with HIV in Scotland is again approaching record levels?

Alistair Darling: My right hon. Friend is right to raise a matter in which he has long taken an interest. It took people a long time to realise how serious HIV and AIDS were, especially in Scotland. It took longer than it should have done for people to realise that action needed to be taken. I know that both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and the Scottish Executive share the same concern. The last thing that we need is to become complacent about HIV and AIDS, because they are as much a threat now as they were all those years ago.

Pete Wishart: The Secretary of State will be aware that Scotland is losing four out of 10 of its newly trained medical graduates. Does he think that that figure will increase or decrease when England secures better finance and resources for foundation hospitals?

Alistair Darling: Scottish universities get a higher portion of funding per head of population than universities in England at the moment. The big issue is to ensure that we get more funding into all universities, both north and south of the border. The Government have been increasing funding. The issue in relation to student finance in England is making the system fairer and getting rid of top-up fees up front—I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is against that. We must ensure that there is adequate funding for Scotland and England over a long period. We have found over the years that other countries have done better than us. The people who oppose the legislation that we shall discuss in the House shortly must ask themselves how they would get more money into higher education. The hon. Gentleman does not have an answer for Scotland, and he certainly does not have an answer for elsewhere.

Russell Brown: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of my constituents travel to Cumbria, and Carlisle in particular, to avail themselves of both basic and specialist NHS treatment? Is it not the duty of every hon. Member to participate in debates and vote on a truly national health service for the entire UK?

Alistair Darling: We are all Members of the House and we vote as we think appropriate. I was interested by an article that appeared today in The Scotsman. The Conservative spokesman on Scotland seems to take the same view, because I note that he voted for the Mersey Tunnels Bill. It is difficult to conceive how that legislation could possible affect Scotland. He also voted for the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill. The article reports that he said in mitigation that
	"on occasion he may have voted in error for a matter only of concern to England".
	He should have looked at the short titles of those Bills, because it was clear to everyone else exactly what they referred to.

Fishing Industry

Alex Salmond: When he last met representatives of the Scottish fishing industry to discuss the Scottish fishing industry.

Anne McGuire: I regularly meet representatives of a wide range of organisations in Scotland, and I keep in close touch with developments affecting the Scottish fishing industry.

Alex Salmond: We all wish the Scottish Fisheries Minister, Ross Finnie, well in his present medical condition. Last Thursday, however, he said that the fishing deal in Brussels had an "unintended consequence" and he might have to go back to Brussels to change parts of it. The deal is vital for the survival of the white fish fleet in Scotland, so can the Minister tell us whether the Secretary of State for Scotland will give Mr. Finnie his full support as a Cabinet Minister and participate in those discussions?

Anne McGuire: I echo the hon. Gentleman in wishing Ross Finnie well for his forthcoming operation. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House send him their best wishes.
	My understanding is that Ross Finnie said that he was prepared to look with the fishing industry at the issues that it raised about the Fisheries Council decision and that, where possible, he would consider ways of investigating some of the issues that it raised about the practicality of the new fishing regime. The Fisheries Council decision gave Scottish fisheries in particular an increased quota, which the hon. Gentleman has been demanding of our negotiations for many months. In fact, we now have an increase in the haddock quota of 66 per cent. It is disappointing that, in making what may be valid representations on behalf of his constituents, he has not welcomed the fact that we came out of tough negotiations with an increased haddock quota—the very thing that he has been demanding for months.

Calum MacDonald: It is correct that there was a significant and welcome increase in the haddock quota and a breakthrough establishing the twin principles of decoupling and spatial management. The Minister will know that there is some concern about the operation of the cod box, which is a designated area north of the Hebrides in which cod fishing is banned. However, we have ended up with a ban on all fishing in that area, including pelagic fishing and the potting of crab. The Minister will know from her own family experience of the crab industry that it is not particularly easy to catch a cod in a crab pot, so the cod box may need to be adjusted. Will she take that on board and raise it in discussions with her colleague, the Scottish Fisheries Minister?

Anne McGuire: I should say for the sake of clarification that I do not moonlight as a lobster or crab fisherman, but my hon. Friend is right that I have some knowledge from family associations of the fishing industry and the difficulties experienced by fishermen who go out in all kinds of weather to catch the fish that we like to eat. I accept the point that he made, and I am sure that similar representations were made last week to Ross Finnie, who has given a commitment to look at such issues.

Peter Duncan: Will the Minister confirm one positive benefit to Scots fishermen accruing from 30 years' membership of the common fisheries policy?

Anne McGuire: If that is a coded question about whether I think we should withdraw from the European Union, I am afraid that I am not going to fall for that bait no matter how attractively it is packaged. I remind the hon. Gentleman, his colleagues and people who criticise the common fisheries policy—we all have our criticisms of the CFP—that had it not been in place, we would have had to reach an international agreement about how we manage fishery stocks, particularly in the North sea and around our coast. I hope that he at least has the courtesy to recognise that we came out of those negotiations with a better deal than anything that was ever negotiated by his party.

Peter Duncan: We did not do very well with that question. Is the Minister aware of comments by the Scottish Executive, who said that the objectives of the December Council had been achieved, including
	"better outcomes for fishing businesses and better outcomes for fishing communities"?
	Does she recognise those outcomes and, given her family acquaintance with the subject, would she invest in a fishing boat today?

Anne McGuire: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not willing to face the reality. The difficulty that must be balanced by our Fisheries Ministers at Westminster and in Scotland and the European Union is that there is a conservation issue, as well as a fishing issue. I am deeply sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not willing to recognise that one of the challenges that we face in managing our fisheries is how we conserve them so that there will be a future for the fishing industry and for fishing communities, including members of my own family, across the whole of Scotland.

ADVOCATE-GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND

The Advocate-General was asked—

Devolution

Ann McKechin: What devolution issues she has considered since 2 December 2003.

Annabelle Ewing: What devolution issues have been raised since 2 December 2003.

Alistair Carmichael: What devolution issues have been raised with her since 2 December 2003.

Alan Reid: What devolution issues she has considered since 2 December 2003.

Anne McIntosh: What devolution issues she has considered since 2 December 2003.

Lynda Clark: I consider all devolution issues that are intimated to me. Since 2 December 2003, there have been 32 devolution issues. Two of them arose in the civil area, while the rest concerned criminal matters such as pre-trial delay, failure to communicate information required by sea fishing measures, and the use of sexual history evidence in trials.

Ann McKechin: In relation to the current debate about our proposals for the new supreme court, what advantages does my hon. and learned Friend consider the proposals have over the existing arrangements for the Privy Council in connection with the Scottish legal system?

Lynda Clark: Considerable representations have been made on the matter. In my personal experience, appearing both in the Privy Council and the House of Lords, legal principles and disputes do not necessarily fall into easily defined categories. They have a nasty habit of spreading across into other areas. Thus, a devolution issue before the Privy Council may raise more general principles that in other cases are considered by the House of Lords. One possible advantage of a supreme court would be that only one superior court would exist to decide such cases. But there are, as my hon. Friend knows, a range of issues that a number of Members of Parliament have raised, as well as many other groups, all of which are being considered by the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

Annabelle Ewing: Sticking with the supreme court, does the Advocate-General agree with her fellow members of the Faculty of Advocates who recently concluded that the current proposals for a UK supreme court were unconstitutional? If she disagrees, can she tell the House why?

Lynda Clark: The proposals are being considered along with other proposals. If there were any suggestion that there was any illegality in the proposed arrangements, that might be referred to me as a Law Officer but, on the general issues, there is no question, in my view, of their being unconstitutional, in the sense of illegal. They may be politically controversial, which is another matter altogether.

Alistair Carmichael: Does the Advocate-General share the view of Lord Hope of Craighead, who, with regard to the creation of a supreme court, told the Constitutional Affairs Committee on 2 December last year:
	"what we are talking about, when we are talking about a final court of appeal in Scottish cases, is an amendment of the Court of Session Act, which is a Scottish Act, which really is under the supervision of the"
	Scottish Parliament?

Lynda Clark: Of course I defer entirely to Lord Hope, particularly when I am appearing in front of him, but in other areas of dispute, it depends how the proposals are brought forward. These matters are all still being considered.

Alan Reid: At the European Fisheries Council meeting in December, a decision was taken that placed certain restrictions on Scottish fishermen fishing in the North sea, but the same restrictions were not imposed on fishermen from other European countries. Surely that is illegal under the treaty of Rome. Does the Advocate-General agree that that is illegal discrimination?

Lynda Clark: If there was a substantive case of that being illegal discrimination, no doubt someone might raise it as a devolution issue. In that case, I should be happy to consider it.

Anne McIntosh: Has the hon. and learned Lady been asked to give her advice on the constitutional implications of the West Lothian question of Scottish Members of Parliament being allowed to vote on laws that will apply exclusively in England? If a test case were brought, which Law Officer would act as adviser?

Lynda Clark: I shall be delighted to see any test case that is brought and to consider it. I am sure that such a case would raise interesting issues. On the general question, the constitutional issue that the hon. Lady mentions seems to me a political controversy, not a legal one.

SCOTLAND

The Secretary of State was asked—

Energy Policy

Anne McIntosh: What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister on energy policy.

Alistair Darling: I have regular contact with the First Minister across a range of subjects.

Anne McIntosh: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving such a full reply. What action is he taking to ensure the security of the electricity supply in view of the fact that thousands of homes and businesses lost electricity in southern Scotland over new year? Will he consider the undergrounding of domestic supplies before we have to import our electricity supply, by 2012 or 2020, from external, independent, third-country dodgy suppliers?

Alistair Darling: There are two points there. First, the hon. Lady is right to be concerned at any interruption in electricity supplies. Over the past few months, there have been some quite serious disruptions to electricity supplies not only in Scotland, but in London and other parts of England. The Department of Trade and Industry, my Department and others are looking at the matter, first to find out exactly what happened and secondly to take appropriate action.
	Secondly, I may have misheard the hon. Lady, but I am not sure that burrowing electricity cables is a practical proposition. On longer-term electricity supply, she is right to say that all Governments must ensure security of supply. Of course, there will come a point at which, for perfectly good reasons, we have to import electricity. There is nothing wrong with that, but we need to make sure that our supplies are secure, and that is what we are endeavouring to do.

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State was asked—

Supreme Court

Mark Lazarowicz: What representations he has received on where the proposed UK supreme court should sit when considering devolution issues.

Christopher Leslie: I have received a wide range of representations on the proposal for a UK supreme court, including a small number referring specifically to where the court should sit. I will publish the responses to the consultation shortly. Various options for the main permanent base of the supreme court are being considered, although the Government believe that, as a UK court, it should be located in the UK capital city. That will not preclude it from sitting elsewhere in the United Kingdom from time to time. It would be for the supreme court itself to decide when it was appropriate to do so.

Mark Lazarowicz: I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. When he considers the matter further, will he bear it in mind that the White Paper on Scotland's Parliament, which was published back in 1997, said at paragraph 4.17 that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, when dealing with devolution issues, might sit in Edinburgh "as appropriate"? That has never happened, as he will be well aware. Will he find out why not and also consider why there should therefore be a requirement on the new supreme court to sit from time to time, when considering devolution issues, in Edinburgh or elsewhere in the UK as appropriate?

Christopher Leslie: My hon. Friend comments on the consultation paper—I think that he responded to it—that contained a proposal to consider transferring the functions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in respect of devolution issues to the new United Kingdom supreme court. As I said in my earlier answer, it might be appropriate for such a supreme court to sit in places other than London around the country, but that would be a matter for it and would be subject to logistical questions. I am not closed-minded on that.

David Heath: Is it not abundantly clear, not least from the evidence of Lords Cullen and Hope and the Faculty of Advocates, that the Government have completely failed to understand the Scottish dimension of what they are proposing with the supreme court? Given that we still have no idea where the court will eventually sit—to the extent that the Lord Chancellor has suggested that it may end up camping out in the House of Lords—should we not take time to get this very important reform, which many of us support wholeheartedly, right rather than rushing it through so haphazardly?

Christopher Leslie: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The purpose of having a consultation paper in respect of any subsequent legislation is to scrutinise such matters in much more detail. We will look very carefully at the representations made about the location of the supreme court. I believe fundamentally that, as a UK supreme court, it should be located in the UK capital city. As I said, however, that will not preclude it from sitting in other parts of the country from time to time.

Keith Vaz: If my hon. Friend looks at the evidence that has been given so far to the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, he will see that many other concerns have been raised. May I press him on his answer to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath)? Surely a pause in the consultation process and an extension of the timetable would give the House, and the country, the opportunity to have a proper, firm set of proposals on replacing the current system. I do not oppose the proposals, but more time is needed.

Christopher Leslie: I understand that my hon. Friend and the Constitutional Affairs Committee have been looking at those matters, and we are happy to have that dialogue and to learn from any suggestions that they might make. However, an inordinate delay would not be in the interests of the proposal. It is right that we should undertake a consultation process, analyse and respond to the responses, and introduce legislation—and that is what we intend to do.

Party Funding

Norman Baker: What plans he has to amend the law relating to party funding.

Christopher Leslie: The current law on party funding is fully in line with the recommendations made by the Neill Committee in 1998. The Electoral Commission is undertaking a review of all aspects of party funding. It is due to conclude its considerations this summer, and we will consider its recommendations carefully.

Norman Baker: The Minister may recall the Prime Minister telling "Newsnight" in 2002:
	"If I could get shot of ever raising a single penny for the Labour party ever again, would I not do it? Absolutely, of course I would."
	Will the Minister help the Prime Minister in this difficult matter by bringing in a clear system of state party funding so that he does not have to rely on dubious business men for his money? [Interruption.]

Christopher Leslie: There is not yet a consensus on state funding, as we heard from the reaction to the hon. Gentleman—although he usually gets that reaction. Given that the state already funds the Conservative party to the tune of £4.3 million and the Liberal Democrats to the tune of almost £2 million, a considerable amount of public resources already go to the hon. Gentleman's party and others. It is important, however, that we continue to talk about such matters, and consider the recommendations of the Electoral Commission when it reports this summer.

John Cryer: Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to rule out any consideration of state funding for parties, despite the pleas of Liberal Democrat Members—and does he agree that this is a question of rights? I contribute to the Labour party because I choose to do so; I do not want to pay through my taxes for the campaign of the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), or of any other Opposition Member.

Christopher Leslie: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course it is good for any party to be a volunteer party—that is, for fund-raising to be by choice. Judging by the amount of expenditure at the last general election, there was no shortage of money available. Additional scope for funding already exists in the form of parliamentary allowances, policy development grants from the Electoral Commission, Short money and so forth. The Electoral Commission is aware of the situation and will report on it.

Patrick Cormack: What the hon. Gentleman says is all very well—we accept that there is a degree of indirect state funding in that regard. Does he accept, however, that the hon. Member for Hornchurch (John Cryer) spoke for many Members on both sides of the House when he urged that it should not be increased? We do not want our ordinary party political activities to be funded by the state, and I hope that the Minister and the Government will turn their face against any such ridiculous suggestion.

Christopher Leslie: The hon. Gentleman reflects the views of many hon. Members on both sides of the House. The Electoral Commission—the independent expert in this field—will no doubt make its recommendations, which we will consider very carefully. I do not want to have a closed mind on the subject at this stage.

Second Chamber

Tony Wright: Whether the Government intend to separate membership of the second Chamber from the honours system.

Christopher Leslie: The Government do not plan at this stage to break the link between the life peerage and membership of the House of Lords. Our Bill will, however, propose ending the link between the hereditary peerage and membership of the House of Lords.

Tony Wright: May I remind my hon. Friend that the royal commission on Lords reform, which the Government established, made a clear and unanimous recommendation that the award of a peerage and membership of the House of the Lords should be "completely distinct"? Whatever else we do on House of Lords reform, will he give an undertaking finally to separate being awarded an honour from service in the second Chamber of Parliament?

Christopher Leslie: What my hon. Friend says about the royal commission is true. Last February, however, there were discussions and a lack of decision on the composition of the second Chamber. That has considerably changed the landscape. We will introduce a Bill to make incremental progress when we can, but our minds are not closed about future changes that may be required. Some issues may need resolving later.

Alan Duncan: When it comes to separating honours from political power, what is the Under-Secretary's verdict on the people's peers who signed a contract to work in the Lords, yet have never even bothered to turn up? How does he reconcile his party's promise, which was binding in a contract with the people called a manifesto, to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative, with the subsequent contrary policy that it will be all appointed?

Christopher Leslie: To take the hon. Gentleman's first point about the appointments process, the proposals in the Bill to create an independent statutory appointments commission will not only remove patronage from the Prime Minister but allow general election results to be reflected in the process. That is a step towards a more democratic and legitimate system, although I accept that there may be a need for further discussion beyond the Bill. I believe that the Lords do a good job with the work that they contribute. When we consider the Bill we shall discuss a statutory appointments commission, so that appointments can be made on merit in future.

Gordon Prentice: But are we getting value for money from the House of Lords Appointments Commission? It is almost three years since the first batch of people's peers was appointed—and as the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) said, we do not hear much from them.

Christopher Leslie: I am not sure whether it is fair to generalise in that way. Different Members of both Houses will have different records in Parliament. However, I believe that it is our job—and especially mine—to examine the framework in which appointments are made, and that the Bill will be firm about the way in which we structure a statutory appointments commission to ensure that we have good criteria for appointments in future.

Magistrates Courts (East Anglia)

Henry Bellingham: When he next expects to meet representatives of the magistracy from East Anglia to discuss court closures.

Christopher Leslie: I have no current plans to meet representatives of the magistracy in East Anglia to discuss court closures—not least because there are no planned court closures in East Anglia.

Henry Bellingham: I am pleased to hear that. I am sorry that the other Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy) is not answering this question, because we have had previous exchanges on this subject.
	Does the Under-Secretary accept that not only the present Government but, to be fair, the previous Government, have been too cavalier about closing magistrates courts? In my constituency, Hunstanton and Fakenham have been closed; again, that happened not only under the present Government but under the previous Government. Those courts were good at ensuring that local justice was administered to local hooligans and thugs by local people. Surely the time has come to stop further closures. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that there will be none?

Christopher Leslie: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman recognises that in the last year of the previous Administration, 21 courts were closed. As I said, I do not intend any courts to be closed in East Anglia at the moment, and the magistrates courts committees do not have any plans to do so either. I shall keep his suggestions under review and I am glad that we have already been able to hear a small number of appeals on magistrates courts and to allow some of them, thus preventing more closures than have been prevented in any other year.

David Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways in which to secure the future of courthouses in rural parts of East Anglia and elsewhere in the United Kingdom is for him to reassure the magistracy—I declare an interest, as a member of the Magistrates Association—that the decisions will be placed in the hands not of short-sighted accountants who cannot see beyond the next balance sheet, but of people who appreciate the value of local courthouses with local magistrates dispensing justice locally?

Christopher Leslie: My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is important that we have sufficient local courthouses to administer local justice. However, we must make sure that we respond flexibly to modern circumstances, and that we have adequate facilities for victims, witnesses and so on. Those are the considerations that we have borne in mind when considering the resources in the magistrates courts estate across the country.

Nick Hawkins: Does the Minister not recognise that far too many courthouses in rural areas have already closed under this Government? About 100 courts have closed since they came to power. It is not acceptable simply to say that there may not be so many closure plans in the future. The real problem is that the Minister's Department boxes in local magistrates courts committees and makes it more or less inevitable that any small courthouse will fail to meet Government criteria. The Government must recognise that local justice is more important than their obsession with the tick-box culture and political correctness.

Christopher Leslie: The hon. Gentleman is clearly seeking some line of attack on the closure of magistrates courts. I remind him that we are not planning any such closures in East Anglia, and that 21 closures took place in the final year of the Conservative Administration. That compares with the 10 courts that closed last year. This year we have allowed more appeals than ever before, which has ensured that fewer courts are closing. We have to look at each case on its own merits. We are also building new courts—for example, in Ipswich and in Cambridgeshire. That is a sensible way to move forward.

Miners' Compensation

Graham Allen: What progress he has made since 2 December 2003 regarding lawyers' fees for former miners' claims for compensation and the role of the office for the supervision of solicitors.

NOTHING

David Lammy: The Law Society's compliance board is urgently investigating the claims made in this House that some solicitors have inappropriately charged additional fees in compensation cases for mining-related diseases. The board is also investigating the basis on which the charges have been made. I am expecting to hear from the Law Society later this week.

Graham Allen: I thank the Front-Bench teams both in the Department for Constitutional Affairs and in the Department of Trade and Industry, on behalf of hon. Members of all parties, for their speedy response to the problems faced by former miners and their widows. Those people have been ripped off—to use the technical legal expression—by being charged extra fees over and above those charged by the DTI. Will the Minister also look into the claims-handling companies, which are just as involved in this malpractice? I understand that a company called Vendside has taken millions of pounds in fees from the DTI. My hon. Friend has done a great job helping former miners and their widows, and I hope that he will also look into the claims companies.

David Lammy: My hon. Friend has been assiduous in campaigning on behalf of miners in this matter. I undertake to investigate the matters in respect of claims companies that he has raised, and to write to him about them. The Clementi review, which was set up by my Department, is looking into regulation in this sector, and there will be some proximity to claims companies. This is a serious matter, and I look forward to what the Law Society has to say later this week.

Adam Price: Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), it is true that Union of Democratic Mineworkers officials Neil Greatorex and Mick Stevens have paid themselves six-figure salaries through a subsidiary company established—with the Government's active co-operation—to process claims. Will the Minister confirm that the remit of the Law Society's office for the supervision of solicitors includes such companies, which subcontract the legal work and then charge miners and their families up to £500 for the privilege?

David Lammy: Solicitors are required by their rules of conduct to agree with clients the basis for charging from the outset of a case. In the absence of a specific agreement, the Law Society would view as improper any subsequent deduction. That is why the matter, which falls clearly and squarely within the Law Society's remit, is so serious. We must wait to see the outcome of the investigations that are continuing.

David Hamilton: Is my hon. Friend the Minister aware that in the cases of many miners in my constituency, the Law Society of Scotland has decided already? They were underpaid before 1999, and then received a payment of £1,000. Because of the advice of lawyers, they are now receiving payments in excess of £10,000, £12,000 and £15,000. Will the Minister investigate to determine that the same is not happening in England and Wales?

David Lammy: My hon. Friend will be aware that we keep a close eye on what arrangements take place in Scotland. Those are different from the arrangements in England, but clearly in this case there is a perception of unfairness, and some merit in that perception.

Asylum Seekers

Evan Harris: What steps he is taking to ensure that adequate legally aided advice and representation is available to asylum seekers.

David Lammy: The Government want to ensure that legal aid is targeted properly on those genuine and complex cases that can demonstrate the need for it by passing the merits test. All asylum seekers meeting that test have access to appropriate advice and representation. The Legal Services Commission constantly monitors supply to ensure as far as possible that, as in all areas of law, sufficient quality suppliers exist to meet the needs of asylum seekers.

Evan Harris: I thank the Minister for that question—[Hon. Members: "Answer."]—or rather, I thank him for that answer. He will be aware that I have written to him that Darby's, the last city-centre firm in Oxford, has withdrawn from publicly funded legal aid for asylum seekers. The Legal Services Commission wrote to me that
	"we did make DCA Ministers aware during the consultation process"—
	on the new arrangements—
	"that firms are threatening to withdraw if the proposals go ahead and if remuneration rates are not reviewed."
	In his letter to me, however, the Minister merely states that his proposals will improve matters. Does he recognise that they will make matters worse, and that fewer good decisions will be made because of inadequate representation for asylum seekers?

David Lammy: No is the short and simple answer to that question. There were three suppliers in Oxford providing asylum and immigration advice. One of those has withdrawn, but we are presently in a bid round, and three suppliers have expressed an interest. If those three suppliers get the contracts, there will still be three suppliers in Oxford. As Oxford is not a large dispersal area, that provision is adequate.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

The Leader of the House was asked—

Post-legislative Scrutiny

David Heath: To ask the Leader of the House what assessment he has made of options for post-legislative scrutiny.

Peter Hain: Some argue that Parliament should do more to monitor the effects of legislation passed. Departmental Select Committees can do that at present if they wish, but I am open to suggestions as to how the matter can be taken forward.

David Heath: With a Government who churn out legislation, create new offences by the hundred—more than 660 before last summer—and have new Home Office Bills such as antisocial behaviour Bills, asylum and immigration Bills and criminal justice Bills queuing up for attention, we often see measures taken that are considered to be the panacea for a particular ill, but are then repealed or replaced even before they are implemented. Is not there a strong case for Parliament to take a reasoned view of what happens after Acts leave this place and how they work in practice, and to examine the consequences of what we pass for the public whom we are trying to serve?

Peter Hain: There are two issues in that question. The first is the list of Bills to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Is he suggesting that we should not be doing something about illegal human trafficking? Is he suggesting that we should not be doing something about antisocial behaviour? Is he suggesting that we should not crack down on criminals who are evading the net of justice? The way in which he and his colleagues have sometimes voted suggests that that is indeed Liberal Democrat policy. On the wider point about procedures in the House, he has a good argument. I am sympathetic to the case for post-legislative scrutiny. It is important that the impact of the Acts that the House passes is evaluated properly. As for how that can be done, several ideas exist, some of which the Modernisation Committee canvassed a few years ago. I do not want to overload departmental Select Committees, which are the obvious vehicles for such post-legislative scrutiny. On the other hand, we need to find a way forward.

Graham Allen: Does my right hon. Friend accept that I had the privilege of leading for my party in Committee on the Child Support Act 1991, which was introduced by Baroness Thatcher, and that everyone agreed with those principles, but that because we had not consulted battered wives or Families Need Fathers, we have had to make four or five subsequent efforts to try to get that legislation right? Such considerations apply to all parties. Does my right hon. Friend accept that if we listened to such groups earlier in the process we would avoid problems? Progress is no faster if we rush legislation through this place; it is better to have full consultation and get things right—as he may feel that we could have done on foundation hospitals and university fees.

Peter Hain: My hon. Friend has advanced a powerful argument in respect of the Child Support Agency. I remember finding, as a constituency Member, that the Act was proving a disaster within weeks of its implementation. He has also made a strong case in respect of post-legislative scrutiny, as did the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath)—but the stronger case is for pre-legislative scrutiny, for which he has also been a powerful advocate. As he knows, the Government have been introducing more and more Bills that have been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, so that there is proper consultation and we get things right. Sir Humphrey does not always get things right.

Nicholas Winterton: The Leader of the House is absolutely right: both pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny are very important, relevant responsibilities of the House. He is also right to stress the importance of Select Committees, especially in the context of post-legislative scrutiny. My own Procedure Committee is currently dealing with the consequences of devolution for the House. If the Leader of the House agrees with me that post-legislative scrutiny is the responsibility of Select Committees, will he ensure that they have the staff and resources that will enable them to perform that function?

Peter Hain: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have improved resources. His Committee and others play a valuable role, and I am grateful for the work that he does. There are a number of issues associated with the hon. Gentleman's proposition. If we gave departmental Select Committees extra responsibilities for post-legislative scrutiny on a systematic basis—of course, they sometimes do the job voluntarily—we would have to consider not just increasing resources even beyond their present level, but the size of Committees and whether Sub-Committees should be established for particular purposes. I know that the hon. Gentleman's colleagues on the Liaison Committee have strong views on that, but if a solution can be found, I am willing to look for it.

Pre-legislative Scrutiny

David Stewart: To ask the Leader of the House how many draft Bills have been subject to online consultation.

Phil Woolas: Only one draft Bill, the draft Communications Bill in 2002, has so far been the subject of an online forum. However, all draft Bills are subject to online scrutiny to the extent that they are published on the Parliament website, and all Select Committees have published e-mail addresses to which the public may send comments.

David Stewart: Does my hon. Friend agree that online consultation does not mean a choice between Pentiums and Parliament, but is a way of involving the silent majority in the legislative process, and another step in the evolution of Parliament?

Phil Woolas: Yes, I do agree. I think that online consultation involving online forums is the way forward. These are, of course, matters for the Committees themselves, but my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has expressed his support for that type of consultation, which benefits the reconnection of Parliament with the voting public in many ways.

Oliver Heald: Does the Deputy Leader of the House agree that what made the online forum considering the Communications Bill so effective was the high quality, well organised moderation of the questionnaires that were sent out electronically, and of the replies that came back? What discussions has he or the Leader of the House had about this, and what is being done to make such facilities available to all Select or Joint Committees that want to undertake online scrutiny? Is it not true that there has been no similar forum since then because the arrangements have not been properly established, and should the hon. Gentleman not get a grip?

Phil Woolas: My right hon. Friend and I have got a grip, and I am pleased to say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The House will know that my right hon. Friend has written to the Chairman of the Liaison Committee opening discussions on the draft Bills that are to be scrutinised and the methods involved. As from this month, Select Committees and Standing Committees are webcast, so that the public can follow their proceedings, and arrangements for the online forum—a more in-depth and useful form of online consultation than a simple e-mail—will follow discussions with the Chairman on scrutiny of draft Bills.

Sitting Hours (Child Care)

Vera Baird: To ask the Leader of the House what plans he has to assess the need for child care facilities for hon. Members if the House were to revert to its former sitting hours.

Phil Woolas: My right hon. Friend has no such plans. He is aware, however, that many Members with young children find the new sitting hours beneficial, especially in the evenings.

Vera Baird: Is my hon. Friend aware that half of all politically active women of all parties who were interviewed by the Equal Opportunities Commission cited the late sitting hours and the lack of child care as the main deterrents to standing for Parliament? Would not any change back to late night working without the introduction of child care strike a double-blow against the greater participation of women in the House?

Phil Woolas: Clearly there is that danger, and if press reports are to be believed, several Members, including Ministers, would, if the decision were reversed, have problems because of their own personal circumstances. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House made a statement last week at business questions about the way forward on this matter. We know that strong views are held throughout the House, irrespective of party-political affiliation, and the Modernisation Committee will examine how best to move matters forward.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

Exhibitions

Helen Jones: What criteria are used in making decisions on allocating exhibition space in the House; and whether he will make a statement.

Archy Kirkwood: Dates for exhibitions in the Upper Waiting Hall are allocated by ballot, overseen by the Serjeant. Such exhibitions sponsored by Members must be non-commercial, non-controversial and non-political. They also require the support of the appropriate Department and need to be endorsed by the Chairman of the Administration Committee.

Helen Jones: I am grateful for that reply, but would the hon. Gentleman give some consideration to giving priority for exhibitions in the House of work done by local people in Members' constituencies—particularly the work of young people? That would enable them to connect with the House and ensure that Members and the public saw much of the good work that young people do.

Archy Kirkwood: That point is well made. I know that the hon. Lady takes an interest in these matters and that she has been unlucky in the ballot. I hope that she will persevere. The Chairman of the Administration Committee has some say over what particular exhibitions can be exempted from the ballot, and that is usually decided with reference to their specific relevance to Parliament. I invite the hon. Lady to make her views further known, and I shall certainly make sure that they are brought to the attention of the Chairman of the Administration Committee. I hope that she will keep trying.

Points of Order

Cheryl Gillan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, of which I have given you notice. From the headlines in today's newspapers it seems clear that the Government are determined to press ahead with yet another outrageous stealth tax on motorists to fund compensation for victims of crime. In the Home Secretary's foreword to the consultation paper issued yesterday, he said that, when the consultation was over, the Government intended to legislate through amendments to the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill. That Bill has already received its Second Reading in the other place. Is not the last-minute announcement of major changes to a Bill that is already on its way through Parliament a serious discourtesy to the House and the other place? Is it not also an indication of the contempt that the Government show for Parliament? Will you, Mr. Speaker, investigate what has taken place on our behalf?
	On a further point of order, a Home Office press release yesterday stated that there will be a 12-week period of consultation, which is the standard minimum period specified in the Government's own code of practice, but the deadline for responses is 29 March—only 11 weeks away. Will you, Mr. Speaker, inquire why the Home Office is making inaccurate statements and why it is ignoring the Government's own guidelines on written consultations?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady refers to a consultation document, and I can tell her that the House will have ample opportunity to debate that matter and respond to it. On the other point of order, she gave me notice and I have taken advice, but it is not a matter for the Chair.

David Heath: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I have answered the point of order, so I do not propose to open it up again. I will take the point of order from the right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes).

George Foulkes: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. You may have noticed that during last Thursday's business questions, I asked the Leader of the House about the fact that the subject for the Opposition day debate was not announced last Thursday. We are getting totally inadequate notice of Opposition day debates, and the public and lobby groups are unaware of what subjects are being discussed. Could you require the Opposition to make the subject for Opposition day debates known in time for the Leader of the House to make an announcement at business questions?

Mr. Speaker: In days gone by, the right hon. Gentleman and I were in opposition. We did not impose such restrictions then, and I will not impose them now.

Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to make this point of order in the presence of the Leader of the House and the Defence Secretary, because both have been very good about coming to the House to make statements. As column 529 of the relevant Hansard shows, yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) and I discussed the principle of whether, when British troops have been in action, a statement should be made to the House of Commons. Did we interpret you wrongly, or were you rather sympathetic to that point of view? And have you received a request from the Ministry of Defence that a statement be made about the events in Amara?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman heard no terms of sympathy from me on that matter.

Patrick McLoughlin: On a point or order, Mr. Speaker. Has a Home Office Minister indicated to you today that the Home Office will make a statement on the categorisation of prisoners, in terms of whether they should go to open prisons? In the past, only those designated as safe and unlikely to abscond have gone to open prisons. I have an open prison in my constituency, and in the first seven months of this year some 56 people absconded, of which 11 had been convicted of either murder or grievous bodily harm. That is causing great concern, and the Government should make a statement to the House on this matter.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could initiate an Adjournment debate on the matter. Opposition Day

[2nd Alloted Day]

National Audit Office Report on Operation Telic

Mr. Speaker: I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Nicholas Soames: I beg to move,
	That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Armed Forces on their outstanding contribution to the success of the Coalition campaign in Iraq; welcomes the positive findings of the National Audit Office Report on Operation TELIC—United Kingdom Military Operations in Iraq; endorses the conclusions and recommendations of that Report, but is gravely concerned about its criticisms of major deficiencies in the supply of vital equipment to UK forces in theatre; deplores the fact that approximately 200,000 sets of enhanced combat body armour issued since 1989 seem to have disappeared and that few troops received their full complement of the extra quantities of clothing and boots ordered from late 2002 onwards; is particularly appalled that there was a 40 per cent. shortfall in tactical nerve-agent detection systems, vital to alert personnel that an attack was underway, and that the operational filters needed to protect Challenger 2 tanks from radiological, chemical and biological attack were not delivered to frontline units until months after the fall of Saddam, given that the Government's casus belli was fear that the Iraqi regime possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that might be used at short notice; condemns as totally unacceptable the extreme peril to which these supply failures exposed service men and women, because of the perceived WMD danger; and calls upon the Government urgently to address the deficiencies identified in the Report.
	Before I begin, the whole House will wish to acknowledge the awarding to the Secretary of State for Defence by the United States Defense Department of the distinguished public service award, in recognition of his support for the US-led war on terror. May I also suggest to him that for his part, he should ensure that the issuing of campaign medals for those involved in the Afghanistan conflict and in Operation Telic be expedited, so that the achievements of our servicemen and women may be more formally recognised?
	The motion draws attention to the findings of a thorough and wide-ranging National Audit Office report entitled "Operation TELIC—United Kingdom Military Operations in Iraq". The report rightly finds that Operation Telic was a significant military success. I pay the warmest possible tribute, as the whole House has done on many occasions, to all those involved before and during the conflict, and in the post-conflict phase. But the NAO report finds that there were a number of profoundly serious logistical problems that could have had disastrous consequences for the 46,000 British servicemen and women involved. The report lists an extraordinary catalogue of problems, many of which were identified, incidentally, in "Lessons Learned", but which were not implemented in Operation Saif Sareea 2, in Oman. Commanders were unaware of where equipment was stored. Life-saving—

John Smith: The hon. Gentleman says that matters arising from that exercise were not addressed, but that is not the case. Investigations into the exercise showed that the Challenger tanks and, indeed, the SA80 rifle performed well.

Nicholas Soames: That is true, but I shall come later in my speech to further glaring deficiencies, particularly with tanks and weapons, so the hon. Gentleman should contain himself.
	Life-saving plates for enhanced ceramic body armour disappeared. Vital protective equipment against chemical and biological weapons was deemed unserviceable. Weapons—for example, the excellent Minimi machine-gun and the underslung grenade launcher—turned up so late that soldiers did not have enough time to train with them. Crucially, the secure satellite links to London broke down on the first day of the war, which was not a helpful start.
	Perhaps even more seriously, the raison d'être of the Government's main case for going to war was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, that was represented as the principal casus belli. If the threat were genuine, all our troops deployed should have been protected against that kind of attack, which was definitely regarded as a possibility. On 24 September 2002, the Prime Minister said that the September dossier concluded
	"that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes".—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 3.]
	Shamingly, the NAO report states:
	"There were difficulties in providing nuclear, biological and chemical protective suits in certain sizes in sufficient numbers".
	It also said that the MOD's
	"entire stock of 4,000 residual vapour detector kits was unserviceable".
	The NAO also reports a 40 per cent. shortfall in tactical nerve agent detection systems. Those failings were potentially dangerous, and the consequences could have been appalling. The situation was wholly unacceptable, and we would like a detailed explanation from the Secretary of State. In one extreme case, Headquarters 1 UK Armoured Division was so desperate to locate missing chemical detection equipment that it sent a team from Kuwait to Bicester to search for vital missing stores.
	If further evidence is required, the Secretary of State should reread the MOD's account of the audacious, courageous and brilliant assault on the Al-Faw peninsula by 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines:
	"As final preparations were made on 20 March in the tactical assembly area to launch the assault, there had been attacks by Iraqi missiles. The brigade fully expected to be subjected to chemical attack and the helicopters to be engaged by air defence artillery."
	The House should also hear about this account published in the Royal Tank Regiment journal by a squadron leader serving in the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment during Operation Telic:
	"The strident call of 'Gas! Gas! Gas!' rang out over the battle group assembly 14 times a day; we learned of several Iraqi surface to surface missile launches and generally the threat of WMD use was more a matter of 'When?' rather than 'If?'".
	The NAO report states that critically—and to compound the seriousness of the situation—7 Armoured Brigade's Challenger 2 tanks and other armoured vehicles did not have
	"viable nuclear, biological and chemical defence filters fitted throughout the warfighting phase of the operation".
	That was a disgrace and a deplorable failing, and it was a merciful deliverance that those filters were not required.
	Had Iraqi forces used the chemical and biological weapons that they were suspected of having, it would have been against British forces that lacked the proper protection that they were entitled to expect. British casualties could have been very serious.

Douglas Hogg: Are not those defects extraordinary given the fact that they were presided over by a Government who asserted to the House that it was the possession of weapons of mass destruction that constituted a threat to the United Kingdom? Yet the Government apparently left our armed forces unprotected against that very threat.

Nicholas Soames: My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. The removal of weapons of mass destruction and the threat of chemical weapons was the principal casus belli in the first place.

Paul Keetch: If the then shadow Secretary of State for Defence—the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who is not in the Chamber today—and the then Leader of the Conservative party visited our troops in the Gulf during the build-up to the campaign, did the troops express concerns about their equipment?

Nicholas Soames: Neither of my colleagues shared that news with me.

Robert Key: Does my hon. Friend agree that the deficiencies that he has just described cannot be laid at the door of the civilian work forces at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down nor at the Defence Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Centre at Winterbourne Gunner, all of whom worked flat out during the run-up to the operation? Those workers are as disappointed as anybody about the deficiencies that have emerged.

Nicholas Soames: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have paid tribute to the work done by all those who prepared for the operation and I shall do so again. I entirely endorse my hon. Friend's words. The problem was not so much about getting the equipment to theatre—people performed heroically—but the tracking of the equipment in theatre and the fact that it did not reach the units for which it was meant.

Geoff Hoon: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks, but how does he reconcile the line of argument that he is pursuing with the NAO conclusion that the protection against chemical agents was good?

Nicholas Soames: That is the line taken consistently throughout the whole report, but I have a number of other things to say on that point and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will do me the courtesy of answering them in more detail when he makes his speech.

Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend is making some important points. He and I are involved with the same regiment—the King's Royal Hussars; I served with the 14th/20th and he served with the Royal Hussars, and he has great experience. Before the Secretary of State replies, will my hon. Friend speculate about why that essential equipment was not available when, clearly, considerable preparations were being made for the conflict?

Nicholas Soames: I shall indeed be speculating about that question. My hon. Friend raises an important point that I propose to deal with, if I may, a little later in my speech.

Geoff Hoon: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way once again. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) referred to deficiencies, and I wonder whether the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) would care to comment on the following quotation:
	"That is not to say that there are not deficiencies. There will always be deficiencies. There are always things that the services need to do their job better."—[Official Report, 16 October 1995; Vol. 264, c. 115.]
	Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

Nicholas Soames: Yes, and I had intended to talk about that before the end of my speech, if the right hon. Gentleman would allow me to make a little further progress. Of course, there are always logistical problems, but our contention is that the problems that occurred were unacceptable and placed many of our troops unacceptably in harm's way, and that the replies given on these matters thus far by the right hon. Gentleman have been complacent.
	On 6 February 2003, the Secretary of State reassured the House thus:
	"I have given that assurance in the past and I repeat it: we are taking the necessary steps to provide our troops with appropriate protection against a nuclear, chemical or biological threat."—[Official Report, 6 February 2003; Vol. 463, c. 399.]

Dari Taylor: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I am delighted to see him at the Dispatch Box. Does he agree that the requirement to deploy in Iraq was urgent? If so, does he also accept the statement made in the NAO report that on this occasion—[Interruption.] I am sorry if I am upsetting Liberal Democrat Members. The NAO report stated that the MOD completed its deployment in about half the time taken in 1991, and did so successfully.

Nicholas Soames: The hon. Lady is an adornment to the Select Committee on Defence and she is very knowledgeable on these matters, but I disagree with the suggestion that there was not enough time to prepare. The possibility of the need to go to war had been known about for a long time. Part of our contention is that the steps necessary to get everything in place were not taken when they should have been.

John Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Nicholas Soames: No, I want to get on.
	At Defence questions on 15 December 2003, the Secretary of State reassured the House yet again that
	"British forces were properly protected and every British soldier had a chemical protection suit available to him."—[Official Report, 15 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 1304.]
	Can the Secretary of State clarify the profound discrepancy between the reassurances that he so blandly gave to the House and the seriousness of the NAO's findings? Specifically, did every soldier have a chemical protection suit available to him, together with all other necessary equipment to deal with a chemical-biological warfare attack before and during the war-fighting phase, which must have been deemed essential, given the nature of the threat? It is, in our judgment, impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of those matters, and they demand the most clear, unambiguous and serious response.
	Second only to the appalling let-down over CBW protection was the body armour fiasco. Despite efforts to obtain covers and sets of ceramic plates to go in them, the report says:
	"insufficient numbers were distributed in-theatre, largely as a result of difficulties with asset-tracking and distribution".
	It goes on:
	"The MOD's defence clothing integrated project team estimated that approximately 200,000 sets had been issued since the Kosovo campaign in 1999, greatly exceeding the theoretical requirement, but these seem to have disappeared."
	Will the Secretary of State inform the House about the whereabouts of the body armour plates issued since the Kosovo campaign?
	The importance and value of body armour can hardly be overestimated. The American defence science and technology laboratory has reported that
	"body armour reduced the number of US forces killed in action from torso wounds by at least 50 per cent. (possibly up to 90 per cent.) and those killed in action overall by over 20 per cent. (possibly up to 32 per cent)."
	Can the Secretary of State confirm the reports that, in the tragic case of Sergeant Roberts of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment who was killed in Iraq on 24 March 2003, those very plates would have saved his life? Is it true that Sergeant Roberts was told to hand his back because they had been withdrawn from tank crews owing to shortages elsewhere, even though his troop was operating a vehicle checkpoint and Sergeant Roberts was dismounted at the time, stopping and searching vehicles for weapons?
	For our part and more generally, we believe it to be unforgivable that soldiers should have been placed in harm's way without the right equipment to protect their lives, and I put it to the House that, in truth, there can be no greater dereliction of duty and failure of the highest office than for the Secretary of State to have ordered the deployment of troops into the field without the fullest available personal protection in such very hazardous circumstances. The House is entitled to ask how many lives, had things gone wrong, might have been lost, given the very serious nature of those equipment deficiencies.
	Can the Secretary of State explain why the extra quantities of desert clothing and boots were available only after the fall of Baghdad? The NAO report makes it clear that, shamefully,
	"few troops received their full allocation of kit and mismatches in sizing remained into the post-conflict phase of the Operation".
	How does the Secretary of State account for his thoroughly complacent and, as it now turns out, wholly inaccurate evidence to the Select Committee on 14 May last year, when he said:
	"all the requisite numbers of boots and clothing and equipment were there".
	That was clearly not the case. How does the Secretary of State explain that?
	What about the L110 Minimi machine guns and the grenade launchers? Some 587 Minimis and 520 underslung grenade launchers were ordered before the invasion. Many of the grenade launchers did not arrive until after the fighting had started and troops had limited time to train on the Minimi, although it was a great success. Indeed, the grenade launcher, regarded as a "key infantry capability", was issued to troops around Basra only after the city had fallen. Moving on, the report highlights many other instances of the MOD inexcusably failing to stockpile the necessary equipment in advance.
	There are two key reasons—this is the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton)—why the Government got themselves into this bind. First, they failed to learn from the hard-won and important lessons of Saif Sareea 2 in Oman and had negligently allowed stocks of equipment to run down to save money. Secondly, because a sizeable number of their own Back Benchers were deeply hostile to military action, Ministers were not prepared to give instructions for the purchase of additional equipment in good time. They left it until the very last minute to avoid sending signals to their own party that they were indeed contemplating war against Iraq. In fact, what they were doing was trying to soothe the anti-war element into believing that it would all be sorted out at the UN. If they got wind last September that advanced preparations for war had been put in hand, the sincerity of the Government's political moves at the UN would have been completely undermined.
	The result of that just-in-time policy was that, in some critical areas, the kit arrived just too late. Indeed, as the NAO report acknowledges, it is a tremendous tribute to the logisticians that so much was shipped and delivered to the theatre in time. But, as General Sir John Reith, the chief of joint operations, told the Defence Committee last year, "we came perilously close". Ministers must bear the responsibility for coming perilously close and for the other equipment deficiencies. That is the gravity of the charge against them.
	The Government are no strangers to that practice, as it is now clear—not as I thought before all the documents were made available to the Hutton inquiry—that the Prime Minster's most senior aides appear to have secured changes that altered the meaning of key intelligence material in the September dossier. The relationship of trust between the armed forces, intelligence services and No. 10 is a critical one and should never be undermined in that way again.
	The Secretary of State has already said that he intends to procure an asset-tracking system. This is not before time. Indeed, it is frankly impossible to understand, given the lessons and problems of earlier operations, why that equipment is not already in place, not least since the Government have made so much of their deemed improvements in deployability in recent years.

George Foulkes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Nicholas Soames: I will not; I shall press on.
	Asset tracking seems to be the reoccurring problem. The Public Accounts Committee report on Exercise Saif Sareea 2 stated that
	"the Department's current asset tracking systems . . . give commanders in theatre no oversight of the assets being sent to them."

George Foulkes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

Nicholas Soames: Indeed.

George Foulkes: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I remember when he was a Minister in the MOD. Why did he not introduce an asset-tracking system?

Nicholas Soames: In the light of what has turned out, I very much wish that that had been a priority then and that we had done so. It is quite clear that an asset-tracking system is long overdue. Indeed, the lessons learned from all military operations in the past few years have been that moving supplies is very difficult and that a most expert tracking system is required. The Government have much work to do on asset tracking and, in the view of the Conservative party, it should have been done some time ago.

Angus Robertson: The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. He rightly highlights a lot of issues about equipment, but does he agree that there are also deficiencies in a variety of services? Chapter 8.24 of the Government's document, "Lessons for the Future", says:
	"Experience on this operation demonstrated that the MOD cannot necessarily rely on contractor support in regions where the threat level is high."
	If we are to learn lessons, should we not learn them now and avoid the privatisation of the defence fire service in the months ahead?

Nicholas Soames: The hon. Gentleman has a particular interest in respect of the defence fire service. I am not sure that contractor support does not have an important role to play in the future, but that is a matter for the Secretary of State—for the next 18 months or so, and then we will sort it out.
	It is important to keep a sense of proportion on these matters. The latest operations in Iraq were a great triumph for British forces, and it is true that there will always be some problems with logistics. Indeed, the report rightly praises the work of the Defence Logistics Organisation and others in getting so much kit shifted. But the worst of the reported failings were potentially catastrophic and the House will, I am sure, feel that they are completely unacceptable for a modern-day army, finding itself deployed on dangerous operations in hostile climates. That British troops invading Iraq were deprived of vital equipment, including body armour and protection against chemical or biological attack, as well as such basic equipment as desert boots and clothing, is truly unforgivable in our judgment. The Secretary of State's continually complacent response is unacceptable to my party, the wider country and, especially, service families, who will share a sense of outrage that our troops were placed in harm's way without the proper kit. The Secretary of State should go.

Geoff Hoon: I beg to move in line 3, to leave out from "Iraq" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	'and welcomes the report of the National Audit Office "Operation TELIC—United Kingdom Military Operations in Iraq", which is consistent with the main conclusions of the Ministry of Defence's own report "Operations in Iraq—Lessons for the Future".'.
	I congratulate the official Opposition on their choice of subject for today's debate. Indeed, I welcomed the report on Operation Telic by the National Audit Office when it was published last December. I welcome the opportunity that the debate provides once again to acknowledge the outstanding performance of our armed forces in Iraq because, in the words of the NAO, Operation Telic was a "significant military success".
	As an independent body, it is not the NAO's role to lavish praise on Government Departments. It rightly gives credit where it is due, as it has done in the case of Operation Telic, but it also addresses areas in which performance can be improved. The NAO report rightly highlights the resounding success of Operation Telic, but it also points out a number of examples where there is scope for improvement in the way in which we conducted operations in Iraq. I welcome the NAO's views on those matters as well. In substance, its findings are no different from the conclusions of the Ministry of Defence's "Lessons Learned" process.
	I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will forgive me if I remind them that the Ministry of Defence published two reports on Operation Telic last year. The first was published in July and the second in December. The first gave an interim account of the operation together with some early indicators of lessons for the future. The second, which was based on the Ministry of Defence's customary more thorough analysis of the operation, gave a fuller account of our conclusions. That was published on the same day as the NAO report and the two are broadly consistent. That is no surprise, because as I made clear at the time, we aimed to produce a full and frank report on all aspects of the operation—not only the parts that went well, but those that could have been done better.
	Before I address several of the specific points made by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), let me set the operation in context. This was the largest logistics effort by the UK armed forces since the 1991 Gulf conflict. We deployed around 45,000 servicemen and women from all three services over 3,400 km to the Gulf region, together with all the supplies of food, water, fuel and ammunition required to sustain them. That required more than 70 ship moves and more than 1,200 chartered and military aircraft sorties. We deployed the about same number of personnel and volume of matériel as in 1991 in less than half the time taken then. As the NAO recognised in its executive summary, that was "a major achievement"—not only a military achievement, but a logistic achievement. Our logisticians are not always given the praise that they deserve, so I am delighted to be able to take the opportunity once again to congratulate them. They did a magnificent job.

Lindsay Hoyle: Everyone congratulates our armed forces on the role that they played and the work that they did on behalf of this country. Will my right hon. Friend state what devastation the previous Government caused to the medical services, which had to be rebuilt to ensure that there were real medical services for those who were injured and in need of medical equipment immediately?

Geoff Hoon: I am sorry that my hon. Friend did not intervene on the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex, because I recall that he had some responsibility for that during his period in office. All that I can say is that this Government are taking action to address those difficulties, which were caused by the misguided cutbacks made when the previous Government were responsible for defence. Indeed, there is a catalogue of difficulties that we have had across the board because of the significant financial cuts that were imposed on the armed forces during the long period of the Conservative Government. It does not help the Conservative spokesman to come to the Dispatch Box to complain about the present state of the armed forces, given the significant increases in expenditure that the Government have been able to provide, often to try to deal with problems that we inherited from our predecessors. Defence Medical Services are an extremely good example of that.

David Winnick: I endorse everything that my right hon. Friend said about the military operations in Iraq—I fully supported the overthrow of one of the most murderous dictatorships in the world—but does he consider it appropriate to make brief reference now to the killings that occurred in Amara over the weekend? I understand that six Iraqis were killed—five by the police and apparently one by British soldiers. We all deplore what has happened, so will he make a comment?

Geoff Hoon: I understand perfectly well why my hon. Friend raises that issue, because it is a matter of some concern. He and other hon. Members will appreciate that there is a continuing investigation into the matter, so it is best that I do not go into detail now save to say that there was serious public disorder and that British forces behaved with the customary expertise with which they handle such problems. The television pictures that I saw over the weekend showing the way in which they dealt with the problem reminded me of some of the training that I have seen in Northern Ireland. I assure my hon. Friend and the House that as soon as the investigation is complete, Ministers will be in a position to provide more information.

Julian Brazier: The Secretary of State must have seen press reports about my former constituent, Colonel Tim Collins, and the extent to which he and many other officers feel let down by the Ministry's failure to respond quickly to deal with and dismiss the ridiculous allegations that were made against him and one or two of his brother officers. Does he accept that the Government owe a duty to give armed forces personnel who risk their lives for us the benefit of the doubt in such cases?

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is best for the Secretary of State not to reply to that question, because we are going far too wide of the matter before us.

Geoff Hoon: rose—

Julian Lewis: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Geoff Hoon: I shall certainly give way.

Julian Lewis: Coming back to the substance of the NAO report, may I draw the Secretary of State's attention to one simple statement? The report says:
	"7 Armoured Brigade armoured vehicles did not have viable Nuclear Biological and Chemical defence filters fitted throughout the warfighting phase of the Operation."
	What does he think would have happened if there had been a nuclear, biological or chemical attack on those vehicles during the war?

Geoff Hoon: I should not ask the hon. Gentleman questions, but he is usually fair-minded about these matters. Chemical, biological and nuclear protection is designed to protect not vehicles but people. I was concerned that the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex was perhaps unconsciously misleading the House about whether individuals were properly protected. As the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) thinks through the implications of what I am saying to the House and of the NAO report, he must ask himself the vital question of whether individuals were properly protected. The NAO report says that they were.

Julian Lewis: With respect, the Secretary of State has not answered my question. If the people in the tanks had been subjected to a chemical or biological attack, the agents would have got into the tanks because of the absence of the correct filters and the individuals would have died. Similarly, there was a 40 per cent. shortage of detection kits. Unless people have detection kits, they do not know that attacks—especially biological attacks—are under way until some time after they have begun, so does he agree that individuals were gravely at risk?

Geoff Hoon: The hon. Gentleman usually reads documents with a great deal more care than that with which he appears to have read the NAO report. I apologise for saying that because, as I said, he is generally a fair-minded man. He needs to look carefully at the report's conclusions. He cannot pick out one detail on vehicles without—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman were to listen while I am speaking rather than making comments, he would find out that the report concluded that the protection given to the armed forces was good in that respect. The answer to his question is that men and women would not have died in such circumstances because they were protected. The report states that fact rather than his suggestion of something to the contrary.

James Gray: Surely, the Secretary of State is wriggling. Figure 6 in the NAO report says quite plainly that the vehicles were not fitted with those filters. He is right that it was theoretically possible for individual soldiers in the vehicles to use their personal NBC kits, but that is to ignore the fundamental point that vehicles should be fitted with filters so that the individuals inside do not need to wear their NBC kit in desert conditions. Will he not answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) more specifically? Why were operational filters not issued to the vehicles before Telic 1?

Geoff Hoon: As I have said, the NAO report, which Opposition Members want to debate, concludes that the overall level of protection in relation to NBC equipment was good—[Interruption.] That may not satisfy them, but if they want to debate a report, they need to debate it in its entirety. Its conclusions are clear, and I am disturbed by their inability to read all of the report. Simply picking out a sentence here and there is not satisfactory.

Michael Portillo: I am worried that the Secretary of State may have put himself in a ridiculous position by arguing that those filters were not necessary. If they were necessary, they should have been fitted. If they were not, they should not have been ordered. What is the position?

Geoff Hoon: I am not putting myself in that position at all. I accept entirely that it would have been better for those vehicles to be fitted with filters, but the decision about whether or not forces are ready for battle—the latter was the case in Iraq—is not made in the Ministry of Defence or Whitehall, as the right hon. Gentleman will know from his own experience. It is made by force commanders on the ground, who render the military advice about whether their troops are ready for battle. That advice was clearly given.
	We were discussing the question of lessons learned. The procedure adopted by the Ministry of Defence ensures that there is a thorough lessons learned process after each operation to identify what could have been done better, and that was true of Operation Telic. The Department's own report, "Operations in Iraq: Lessons for the Future" was the result of gathering extensive evidence from those involved in the operation at all levels. It covered the full range of operational issues, and identified lessons for the future. There is no benefit in a lessons process that is bland or uncritical. I encouraged the production of an honest, unflinching report that focused quite rightly on the future, and outlined areas where there must be improvements. Our hard-hitting report made no attempt to pretend that everything was perfect, and the NAO itself acknowledged that the Ministry of Defence
	"has a comprehensive process for identifying lessons."
	As a consequence of that lessons process, the Department has itself identified areas where improvements can be made, and a number of strands of work are already under way. For example, as a result of the experience of recent operations, including Operation Telic, the MOD has increased, or is increasing, holdings of certain operational stocks, including 32,000 sets of desert combat clothing, 32,000 sets of tropical combat clothing, 32,000 sets of NBC individual protection equipment, and an additional 1.5 million individual operational ration packs. In addition, equipment that proved itself during the operation such as the Minimi light machine gun, which has already been mentioned, is now being purchased in greater numbers to complement the excellent equipment already in service.
	The Ministry of Defence has already recognised the need for a senior logistician to provide a headquarters focus for logistics matters. A total asset visibility system was purchased to help track equipment that is going into theatre during the deployment. Further work is still required, however, on the tracking of supplies and equipment already in theatre. As for planning, the defence White Paper that I presented to the House before Christmas sets the framework within which we will plan for future conflicts. In addition, recently there has been detailed consideration of our planning assumptions, which were reissued in revised form in August last year to take account of the lessons from Iraq. In a wider perspective, we have been working closely with other Government Departments to improve our planning for post-conflict situations. The MOD is fully engaged and contributing to all those groups, and has valuable expertise to offer on the issues of conflict prevention, military intervention, military-civilian transition and post-conflict reconstruction.

Patrick Mercer: Anybody who has been involved in an operation accepts that there will be deficiencies and shortcomings in equipment. Any superficial study of military history will show that in every campaign there are problems. Soldiers accept that, but there are one or two things that every soldier, airman and sailor must have. How does the Secretary of State explain the fact that soldiers from the South Nottinghamshire Hussars went into battle without any ammunition for their personal weapons?

Geoff Hoon: I am simply not aware of that. The hon. Gentleman has previously raised this matter with me and with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who intends to deal with it in correspondence. I am not aware that individuals were placed in that position, but I shall certainly have the matter investigated, and have previously undertaken to ensure that it is brought to the attention of those responsible. If what the hon. Gentleman says proves to be the case, I shall write to him.
	When I gave evidence to the Defence Committee last May I made it clear that our lessons work was still at a relatively early stage, as less than a month had elapsed since serious fighting had stopped. Some press reports alleged that there were various equipment and personal kit shortages early in the operation. I acknowledged even then that
	"in an operation of this size there are bound to be glitches",
	and I undertook to be
	"rigorous in analysing our performance".
	However, I stressed that shortfalls needed to be seen in the context of a highly successful campaign, in which our equipment proved to be of a very high quality. I stand by that judgement, as indeed does the NAO.
	The extensive work by the Ministry of Defence and the NAO since that evidence session in May has produced a much more detailed picture. It has provided greater detail on shortcomings, but it has also reinforced the overall success of the operation.

Paul Keetch: In evidence to the Select Committee hearing on 14 May, the Secretary of State said that the chiefs of staff had assured him
	"at every stage that there were no complaints"
	about kit. He certainly received complaints from me, but can he tell the House whether he received complaints from Conservative Members about deficiencies in kit in the run-up to operations?

Geoff Hoon: I accept that general points were made about preparations, and I certainly recall individual Members raising those matters with me. Inevitably, in those circumstances, it is necessary to rely on the military advice given at the time, and I shall deal with that more thoroughly in a moment. I am sure that Opposition Members would be the first to complain if they judged that Ministers at a distance in Whitehall were interfering with day-to-day decisions about military capability, which were made, quite properly, by those responsible on the ground.
	Turning to specific concerns about equipment deficiencies, the Ministry of Defence is already aware of the need for some improvements in logistics, but those issues must be viewed in the context of the overwhelming success of the operation. Indeed the Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, acknowledged on the day that the NAO report was published that equipment shortfalls
	"should be seen in the wider context of the overall success".
	We now know that the shortfalls experienced in a handful of equipment areas did not affect operational capability. The commanders in theatre made their preparations and declared full operational capability to the Ministry of Defence before operations commenced. They were satisfied that they had all the equipment that they required to conduct the campaign successfully. As the NAO points out,
	"the huge logistic effort was successful and fundamental to the success of the operation. There were many examples of success in the way that the logistics challenge was met."
	There is therefore a challenge for Opposition Members. Are they suggesting that Ministers should second-guess the military advice provided by commanders in theatre? If that were the case, and there was evidence of Ministers second-guessing military advice, they would have been, quite rightly, the first to complain. It is their call—are they saying that Ministers should have overridden the advice of military commanders in theatre? That has never been the case in the past, nor should it be the case in future.

James Gray: The right hon. Gentleman has been generous in giving way, but does he not accept that the ethos of the British services has always been to salute, turn to the right and go into battle when instructed to do so by the Secretary of State? None the less, that does not mean that there were not deficiencies in the kit with which they were issued. To argue that the fact that officers on the ground said that they were operationally ready excuses criticism in the NAO report is grossly inadequate.

Geoff Hoon: I'm sorry—I thought the hon. Gentleman had a much closer knowledge and understanding of individual members of the armed forces than his question displayed. Having spent almost four and a half years working closely with them, I assure him and other hon. Members—there are many present who know better than that—that senior members of the armed forces and many junior ones are very forthright in setting out their views and opinions, and certainly would not respond in the way the hon. Gentleman suggested if they thought they were incapable of carrying through a military operation successfully. When he looks at the record of his observation in Hansard, perhaps tomorrow, I think he will realise that that was not the most sensible thing he has ever said to the House.
	The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex rightly raised the issue of body armour, with particular reference to the death of Sergeant Steven Roberts. The hon. Gentleman is well aware that the death of Sergeant Roberts is currently the subject of a Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch investigation, and it would therefore be inappropriate to comment in detail or to speculate on what the findings of the SIB investigation might be. I have, however, undertaken to keep Sergeant Roberts's widow, Mrs. Samantha Roberts, informed of progress on a regular basis. She has been provided, in confidence, with a summary of the incident in which her husband died, and a ballistics report. I have also met her personally and I have indicated that I would be willing to do so again. Once the SIB investigation has concluded, an Army board of inquiry will be convened.
	Perhaps I should explain some of the complicating factors relating to the issue and tracking of body armour during Operation Telic. The Ministry of Defence took the decision to improve the protection offered to servicemen and women deployed on Operation Telic by issuing enhanced combat body armour, initially designed for peacekeeping duties in Northern Ireland, to as many troops as possible. To this end, 38,000 sets of enhanced body armour were sent to theatre, which should have been sufficient to equip all who needed it. Not all of this equipment reached every unit in theatre before the start of combat operations. However, the equipment that was known to arrive in theatre was prioritised for those whom commanders judged had the greatest need, ensuring that all dismounted infantry units benefited from this additional protection.
	A question has also arisen about 200,000 sets of combat body armour said to have been lost since the Kosovo campaign. Although it is a fact that, once issued, the Defence Logistics Organisation cannot locate each individual set of components that comprise enhanced combat body armour or combat body armour, the body armour components are currently held by individual units and are not, in fact, lost. The defence clothing project team is undertaking an audit with Land Command to establish the basis for future needs and the extent of the Army's holdings, and intends to extend that audit to both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.
	There have also been concerns about the supply of desert boots and desert clothing. The Ministry of Defence's own report acknowledges that, despite a huge effort, a number of soldiers did not receive desert clothing and boots in time. We routinely planned to hold enough desert equipment to support our high readiness forces—some 9,000 personnel. On this occasion we chose to deploy significantly more personnel. To make good the shortfall, an additional 40,000 pairs of desert boots and 80,000 sets of desert clothing were sent to theatre. Not all of this equipment arrived with troops before the start of combat operations. However, front-line forces were equipped as a first priority, and temperatures in the Gulf at that time of year meant that these shortages did not impair our forces' ability to fight.
	There have also been suggestions, as we heard today, that our defences against chemical or biological attack were inadequate. I entirely reject that suggestion and agree with the NAO that overall the protection against chemical agents was good. UK forces were deployed with comprehensive defences against chemical and biological attack. There were in general already sufficient stocks of nuclear, biological and chemical defence equipment in store to mount Operation Telic. Furthermore, strenuous efforts were made to address any shortfalls that were identified in our regular stockholding during the preparation and planning period. Again, that is set out clearly in the NAO's report.

Patrick Mercer: During exercise Saif Sareea we on the Defence Committee were able to see armoured crews practising for chemical conditions without personal equipment being worn, on the clear understanding that NBC vehicle filters would be in place. I do not need to labour the point about the efficiency of the crew when wearing their masks. The Secretary of State mentioned that such preparation was in place. He mentioned that lessons were learned from Saif Sareea. That does not seem to be the case.

Geoff Hoon: I do not accept that for a moment. I shall go on to deal with the point. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to pursue the matter further after that, I shall be delighted to give way to him again.
	In the event, all service personnel had their own personal respirator and at least one NBC suit before the start of combat operations. In addition, a variety of detection systems were deployed to the Gulf to provide early warning of any attack, which thankfully never came. We believe the chemical and biological protection given to our troops is among the very best in the world. We have acknowledged in our own reports that there were deficiencies in the way stocks of some NBC equipment were managed. The Department is working hard to ensure that that does not occur again. However, as the NAO recognises in its report, mitigating action was taken through a combination of purchasing spare parts and rigorous re-testing of equipment. The operational requirement was consequently fully met.
	Despite the difficulties that the NAO report and our own reports have identified, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Ministry of Defence once again performed with distinction, the equipment provided for the armed forces was very effective, its logistic support was most impressive, and the revolution in strategy and doctrine that we instigated in 1998 has again been vindicated.

Nicholas Soames: In my comments at the beginning and end of my speech, I was at pains to dispense rightful praise to all involved in what was a military success. There remain, however, some glaring deficiencies, which the right hon. Gentleman refuses to deal with, or deals with in such a way that everything, apparently, is perfectly okay. May I draw his attention to figure 12 of the NAO report, which summarises the repeated identification of logistics lessons from previous operations and previous exercises? In Saif Sareea, the lessons learned involved poor asset tracking, poor logistic communications, stock shortages, priority deadlines not met and lack of control over the coupling bridge. Exactly the same lessons seem to have to be learned in Telic. Why were the lessons of Saif Sareea not more swiftly put in place?

Geoff Hoon: The central difficulty under which the hon. Gentleman is labouring, if he will forgive me for saying so, is that the operation was an outstanding success and has been recognised as such by everyone. If he were arguing that it was a significant failure, there might be some force to his criticisms, but again, I refer him and all Opposition Members to the conclusions of the NAO report. That organisation carefully considered all the evidence and made a balanced judgment, reporting to Parliament, and its conclusion is clear. I refer the hon. Gentleman to paragraph 9, which states:
	"The logistic effort for the Operation was huge and key to success."
	The start of paragraph 10 states:
	"Overall, the logistic effort was successful".
	He cannot go behind those conclusions, not least having selected the NAO's report to Parliament as the basis for this debate. He either accepts the validity of what the NAO is saying to Parliament, or he rejects the report in its entirety.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Geoff Hoon: I shall not give way again. I have almost concluded my remarks.

Tam Dalyell: Will my right hon. Friend allow me?

Geoff Hoon: I shall certainly give way to my hon. Friend.

Tam Dalyell: The Secretary of State rightly refers to performance with distinction. I know perfectly well that it is not up to Ministers, and properly so, to have any say whatever in the award of distinguished service orders, military crosses and other honours. That must be done on a military basis. However, I think he knows why I ask the question. Could he confirm that the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards performed with distinction?

Geoff Hoon: I can, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that. I have made the same point in relation to a range of our armed forces who were engaged in these operations. Had Opposition Members come to the House today with the benefit of a critical report following a military failure, they might have had some reason for making the kind of criticisms that they are making. Instead, they have come to debate in the House today a report that is supportive of the position taken by the Government, and which says that the effort, logistically in particular, was an outstanding success, and that the military operations were an outstanding success.

Hugh Robertson: Although I accept what the Secretary of State says, surely he would accept that one of the principal reasons why the operation was such a success was precisely that our armed forces were not subject to the very sort of attack that was his principal casus belli. If they had been subject to such an attack without the correct filters in the tanks that were indeed the battle-winning asset, the outcome might have been very different.

Geoff Hoon: I accept that all sorts of things could have happened, but even on the specific point that the hon. Gentleman fairly and properly makes—he always makes informed observations in the House on the position of the armed forces—the report's conclusion is clear. It says that the protection available to Britain's armed forces was good. He cannot go behind that clear conclusion of the NAO.

Dari Taylor: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. I have listened with great care to all that you have said at the Dispatch Box this afternoon, and you have, rightly in my view, praised—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady must get her terminology right.

Dari Taylor: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I got carried away.
	I have listened with great care to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who has rightly heaped praise on the British armed forces as they have been deployed, including for the way in which they have worked with communities in Iraq. I would greatly appreciate it if he would widen his praise, because the Territorial Army has been fundamental to the success of the British armed forces. I should be very grateful if he would comment on that aspect.

Geoff Hoon: If I have been remiss with regard to reservists—I see at least two in front of me who have served with great distinction—I apologise. We have had an indication of just how central the reserves have become in the overall effort of the armed forces. That is a vindication of the policy set out in the 1998 strategic defence review of making our reserve forces usable. They have performed with absolute distinction in this operation.
	In conclusion, our armed forces are continuing to perform a difficult but vital job in Iraq, helping the Iraqi people to establish a functioning infrastructure, providing security and stability and creating the conditions for a viable new Government. British civilians are also working in the region, carrying out our country's commitment to act as a force for good in an uncertain world. I am sure that the House will join me once again in honouring the magnificent work of all our people, who continue to demonstrate their exceptional quality, courage and dedication.

Paul Keetch: I join the shadow Secretary of State for Defence in congratulating the Secretary of State on his award from the Pentagon. I also back the calls for the Afghan and Iraqi campaign medals to be issued very quickly.
	I, too, welcome this debate. The Secretary of State was right to point out that the National Audit Office report commends the Ministry of Defence on a military success. The staff at the MOD and the military personnel around the world who contributed to that success deserve recognition. However, although Operation Telic may well have been a military success, it is, quite frankly, too early to say whether the war and its aftermath have been a success.
	There are many questions about the operation and I congratulate the Conservatives on raising them in debate today. However, their support for the decision to invade Iraq, on the basis of what many people believe was flawed intelligence and despite the fact that the United Nations inspectors believed that progress could be made, should not be forgotten. Indeed, the Conservative party bears responsibility for supporting the war, just as the Government bear responsibility for taking this country to war.
	The concerns raised about kit in the NAO report were well understood before the war began. They were voiced by the forces and by me and others when we visited the Gulf last January. They were expressed to me by constituents and have also been expressed to other hon. Members. When I raised those concerns with the Secretary of State on numerous occasions, he told me that I had
	"'unreasonably fuelled' the criticism of the logistics arrangements".—[Official Report, 3 March 2003; Vol. 400, c. 565.]
	Perhaps I did and perhaps I did not, but I hope that he would not make the same accusation about the families of Steven Roberts and the other people killed in the war. On the subject of Sergeant Steven Roberts, I commend the work of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler). We believe that the way in which Sergeant Roberts's family is treated will be a litmus test for the Ministry of Defence and the Secretary of State. However, there is no point in just calling for the Secretary of State to resign; Sergeant Roberts's family want explanations, and I am sure that they will come through.
	The Conservatives should have been raising concerns about kit before the build-up to the campaign, rather than simply complaining afterwards. Instead, they blindly supported the drive to war, and the public will eventually come to understand the hypocrisy of their position. The previous Speaker, Speaker Boothroyd, in advising me on voting in this place, advised me simply to read the Order Paper and then read it again. Having read the motion before us today, despite misgivings and although I will do so through gritted teeth, I shall support it later.
	The report highlights many supply and logistics problems that occurred during Operation Telic. Most worryingly, many of those problems, as has already been said, were identified in previous operations and exercises. They include problems relating to spares, asset tracking and supply chain management. I shall give just two quotes from the report. Page 45 states:
	"Some key lessons have been identified before. This appears to be particularly true for those lessons which only have a significant impact during high-intensity warfighting operations."
	In other words, the problems were most acute when we were going into real warfare. On asset tracking, page 24 states:
	"The lack of an effective asset tracking capability has been highlighted repeatedly on previous operations and exercises."
	The report confidently expresses the view that the MOD will learn from the difficulties raised. I hope that it does, but I suspect that we will not know whether that has happened until we see a future operation.
	We are talking not only about technical problems, but about basics—boots, clothes, body armour and nuclear, biological and chemical protection suits.

Geoff Hoon: Before the hon. Gentleman gets on to the basic matter of boots and so on, I should not want him to leave the House with the impression that an asset tracking system in theatre can somehow be produced off the shelf or purchased at one's local computer store. Even the Pentagon has been frustrated in its efforts to produce an appropriate system that will work in all temperatures and conditions. I do not want him to leave anyone with the idea that we could go out and purchase such a system tomorrow and that there was a failure to produce one in the past. This is an enormously complex and difficult area of expertise on which we still have more work to do.

Paul Keetch: The Secretary of State is absolutely right. He was also right to comment in his speech on the fact that the previous Government had not invested in such equipment. Poor asset tracking was regarded as a problem in the Bosnia and Herzegovina operation back in 1995–96, and I seem to remember that the Conservatives were then in power.
	To go back to boots, the kind of equipment and body armour that was lacking could have saved Sergeant Roberts's life. Many Members highlighted such problems at the time, based on the complaints that they had received from forces families, but we were told again and again that there was no problem, that the press were exaggerating and that every person was fully equipped. Indeed, the Secretary of State told the Select Committee on Defence in evidence on 14 May that
	"there might have been the odd person who did not get the right sized pair of boots."
	Clearly, that was not just the odd soldier. As the report rightly said, "few troops" received their full complement of desert clothing and boots. As the Secretary of State has said, members of the armed forces were very quick to respond and to complain. They certainly complained to me. It was because of those problems that, as they told me before the conflict, they were nicknamed "the borrowers" by their US counterparts.
	We also know that the NBC equipment problems were experienced against a background in which weapons of mass destruction might actually have been deployed, despite the comments in the Carnegie report and those of Mr. O'Neill. Before the war, the Government were at times almost hysterical about the possibilities regarding weapons of mass destruction, but the priority given to NBC equipment seems to give the lie to their concern. As we know, and as has already been said, some soldiers returned to the UK to search for their NBC equipment, and just over half the NBC detection equipment and NBC filters for armoured vehicles were not even delivered, let alone fitted. What is more, according to the report, only 10 per cent. of NBC vehicle decontamination systems were in place before the start of combat operations on 19 March.
	In the event, it seems that we should be very thankful that Saddam Hussein either did not have or did not deploy weapons of mass destruction. However, if WMD are to be the greatest threat facing our country in future, the ability to defend our troops against chemical or biological attack simply must be improved.
	Supply problems, especially in relation to AS90 guns and Challenger tanks, meant that many vehicles—indeed, up to 30 per cent. of the fleet at home—were cannibalised for spares. Where does that leave our armoured capability, and how long will it take the Ministry of Defence to get back to its required targets?
	It is not just with kit and equipment that there were problems. We have said before that we believe that the armed forces are experiencing overstretch, and the strain on our armed forces has been exacerbated by Iraq. We do not need an NAO report to tell us that, but its recommendations must be taken seriously. Overstretch is not merely an unfortunate constraint on the ability to deploy: it affects our ability to win battles and to save lives in combat. The Defence Medical Services were rightly highlighted in that context. Key specialisations need to be addressed, and troops should not go into combat uncertain about their capabilities or their support staff. Reservists have been relied on to an enormous extent—we owe them a true debt of gratitude—but the conditions and confusions surrounding their terms of service have alienated many. Conditions for those who fill the breach must improve—otherwise, the shortfall that has appeared will not be met, but increased.

Brian Jenkins: As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, this is probably one of the first times that an NAO report has been discussed in the Chamber without yet having gone to the Public Accounts Committee. Every word that is uttered will be entered into evidence to allow the PAC to grill the Department on the report. Will he try to ensure that those of us on the PAC are given the opportunity to remain non-political in assessing the facts and the surrounding evidence?

Paul Keetch: The hon. Gentleman is right about the PAC. Although lessons have been learned from the operation, some of its long-term consequences will not be known for many months or years, and we will have to return to them.
	The report is critical of post-war planning. If Operation Telic was a military success, the Government's lack of foresight, given what followed, certainly was not. The report makes plain what we all knew, stating on page 32 that
	"the Government had not fully anticipated the consequences of a total collapse of the Saddam regime and what the United Kingdom's obligations would be once hostilities had ceased."
	Our armed forces performed all their usual tasks in their usual way, but the Government's planning before and in the aftermath of the war was inadequate. How could that be so? If ever there was a war that we could see coming, it was surely this one.
	I commend our armed forces for again demonstrating that they are the best in the world, but I urge the Government to learn not only the operational lessons of Operation Telic, but the political and strategic lessons of going to war without international support. This was not a war of necessity, but a war of choice by the Prime Minister and the President of the United States. There were, as we maintained, other ways of dealing with Iraq. As the former Chief of the Defence Staff pointed out, we are currently not in a position to mount a major operation and will not be for some time. The Government must ensure that the lessons set out in the report are learned and, more importantly, put into practice. Our armed forces have again shown their skill and great courage, and the Government must play their part.
	I hope that the Conservatives—Her Majesty's loyal Opposition—will also learn those lessons. I asked the shadow Defence Secretary whether his predecessor and the previous leader of the Conservative party were told of the concerns that I have raised when they visited the Gulf at the beginning of last year. On 13 March last year, the then shadow Defence Secretary told The Daily Telegraph that
	"everything I asked about when I was there, I was absolutely assured would arrive in time".
	Perhaps the shadow Defence Secretary should not be so quick to accept the Government's assurances. I hope that Conservative Members, who were so readily convinced in their blind rush to go to war, will not be so easily appeased in future.

John Smith: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I congratulate the Opposition spokesman on choosing the subject of the National Audit Office report. That was courageous of him, because nobody can be in any doubt that even a cursory reading illustrates the tremendous military success of Operation Telic and the way in which our forces were protected in an incredibly difficult and dangerous theatre of war.
	The references that have been made to the length of time that was available to prepare for the operation are not entirely accurate. Not only did we make one of the most rapid deployments of British forces in our entire military history—almost 46,000 troops were transported more than 3,000 miles within 10 weeks, which is less than half the time that it took to deploy forces in the first Gulf war—but we had to deploy them at very short notice in a scenario that was not anticipated. It was originally planned that the British support role was to be based, with our allies, the Americans, in northern Iraq and southern Turkey; but, at incredibly short notice, we had to reconfigure all our forces to Kuwait and to approaches from the south. That would have presented an enormous logistical challenge to a relatively small force, let alone a force on that scale. In addition to the massive movements of personnel, thousands of vehicles, hundreds of planes and several warships were deployed. It seems incredible to me, even with my very limited experience of military matters, that we were able to mount such an operation. The criticisms that have been made are meagre in comparison with its military success and the speed with which it was undertaken.
	As for inadequate equipment, one of the most important aspects of an operation of such danger was the limited number of British casualties. If we were ill prepared and ill equipped, had not planned properly, and did not have such excellent military leadership, the number of casualties—not only military, but civilian—would have been far higher. As the report makes clear, the gloom and doom merchants who predicted tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties were proved wrong by the great success of the operation in terms of planning, equipment and support. I am saddened by the comments of Conservative Members, because they know better. In relation to the inadequate supply of boots or clothing, when has it ever been any different? Asset tracking sounds wonderful—we owe it to the taxpayer and to our soldiers in the field to pursue it—but it is simply not true that the problem has only just appeared on the horizon and exposes and threatens our forces. When moving so many items of equipment, the idea that one is in the warehouse of an Asda or some other well known supermarket and can track the destination of every tin of beans, identify how much is being sold and relate back from the till to the men and women in the warehouse is nonsense. You are on a battlefield for goodness sake—under threat with life at stake. The equipment must be managed in the most difficult circumstances.

Mike Hancock: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and apologise to the Secretary of State for being absent for his contribution this afternoon, when I was at a meeting. The hon. Gentleman makes the interesting point that the boots were not so important and that perhaps the problem has arisen previously. Does he feel the same about the failure to supply ceramic plates for flak jackets and the fact that men and women on active duty had flak jackets without adequate protection to stop a bullet?

John Smith: I never said that. I said that, when referring to an apparent lack of protective equipment, we should consider the number of fatalities. Every one is a tragedy, but there is sufficient proof that the large-scale military operation was conducted in such a way that the lives and interests of our troops were protected. The bottom line is that whether to put troops into the field and whether they are adequately protected are military decisions. Ministers and politicians—certainly not those present—do not make such decisions.

Mike Hancock: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is currently an investigation into the death of one of our servicemen who might not have been killed had he been wearing the right protective equipment?

John Smith: Everyone in the House awaits the outcome with interest. If there are lessons to be learned from that, as well as general lessons, I am sure that we shall take them on board.
	I want to speak about the availability of equipment. References have been made to the full complement of protective equipment and clothing. Anyone who has been in the military realises that there is a huge difference between a full complement and what is needed to do the job. I understand that three sets of military fatigues are considered a full complement—strictly speaking, what is needed to go into an operational area. Of course, that does not happen.
	Decisions about clothing, equipment and munitions are made when it is almost impossible to track what is going on. Let me give an example from my experience. I have been involved in an operation in which vital equipment is flown in and unloaded, and several well meaning, usually young and inexperienced, officers direct where it should go—where it is vital and where it is not so important. Everybody salutes and agrees to carry out the commands, but a couple of experienced non-commissioned officers who have previously been in such situations say, "Don't take too much notice of that. This is where the equipment's going and this is where it's needed." Frankly, that is often what makes British forces so effective. We have not only experienced officers but NCOs who can make key decisions and take leadership roles on the battlefield.
	Of course, stuff goes missing—stacks of it go missing. As a former serviceman, I found one word in the report very interesting. It says that equipment is "misappropriated". That means that military personnel who need it grab it while they can. They want to be able to use it when they need it. I emphasise to hon. Members who do not know it that such decisions are made all the time in the heat of battle and war. The idea that one can introduce a system, whether it is called asset tracking or anything else, which works efficiently in a battle does not stand up. We should work towards it, but we shall be lucky if we are in a position in future to locate assets easily in such circumstances.
	The report is interesting, but we must bear in mind the fact that it is written by auditors. Military personnel or people with direct experience of military decision making certainly did not write it. By and large, it reads like an auditors' report. It is about value for money and what has happened to some of the equipment that was put in the field. That is clear from references to our personnel's ability to adapt and modify equipment on the battlefield because they do not get exactly what they want when they want it and for the task for which it is needed.

James Gray: Does the hon. Gentleman seriously suggest that the fact that our soldiers are good at making do and mending excuses our not providing the proper equipment in the first place?

John Smith: No, I am not trying to say that. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that British soldiers are the best in the world at adapting to circumstances, modifying equipment and recovering vehicles on the battlefield. They lead the rest of the world in their ability to be flexible and adaptable. That is why they are playing such an important—indeed, invaluable—role in the current military operation under the overall control of the United States. Opposition Members have simply provided a catalogue of logistical failures.

James Gray: That is in the report.

John Smith: No, it is not. The report's overall conclusion is that the operation was a huge military success conducted in a hostile and austere environment. We achieved our military objectives and we should have nothing but praise for our military forces, the Ministry of Defence and the conduct of our Ministers throughout the military operation. [Interruption.] Hon. Members will not hear me lavishing praise on Ministers unless I believe that it is justly deserved. Today, it is deserved and the report shows the reasons for that. I am therefore pleased that the subject was chosen as the topic for today's debate. We should all be proud of such a huge military success.
	We need to be careful when we draw parallels, but some of the comparisons between the way in which British forces and others conducted themselves in the theatre of operations and post-war show the former's greater experience and professionalism, and better training. Of course, they must have the equipment and the ability to do their job properly. They have done a tremendous job. I am extremely proud—and I am sure that everybody is—to see our armed forces excel.
	However, as the Secretary of State made clear, there are important lessons to be learned from the report. I emphasise that it is an auditors' report, not a military report. We should bear that in mind. I am sure that anyone who was involved in drawing up the report has little military experience. Nevertheless, there are lessons to be learned.
	We have made great inroads into the logistical chain in the military. Major new policies have been introduced on smart procurement and streamlining and rationing our supplies, equipment and stores, and on just-in-time technology to try to ensure that vital equipment gets to the right place at the right time. I think that we have made great progress in that respect. The Opposition accuse us of not being able to account for some body armour, a relatively small matter. In 1997, the Conservative Government could not account for a fleet of trains owned by the Ministry of Defence. The missing items included rolling stock, track, railway sidings, land, property—and even 600 horses for which the MoD was still responsible.
	That is not so long ago, but in those days there was virtually no asset checking or auditing. It was a great innovation when someone sat down and asked, "What exactly do we own?" We need take no lessons from the Opposition about managing our stocks and assets, but we need to be careful and to take some elements in the report seriously. It states that, in some cases, equipment arrived only hours before it was needed in battle. Our armed forces were working in very difficult circumstances to prepare for dangerous conflict. We need to learn that lesson.

John Barrett: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the report's basic conclusion that the military did not receive all the necessary equipment on time? If body armour and filters had been received on time, our military personnel would have been better protected. Moreover, does he agree that that equipment would have arrived before military action took place if the rush to war had not been driven by the American Government?

John Smith: I do not accept that. The hon. Gentleman assumes that war is an exact science, but it is not. The problem is that, in the fog of war and military action, it is hard to know what is going on, and I shall give the House one example of that.
	Mention has been made already of how British soldiers had to borrow equipment from their American counterparts. I know that they were very keen to borrow the Haagen Dazs ice cream available in the air-conditioned American tents in the battlefield. Also available there was food from McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken. However, some of the contractors supplying that food were not covered by war-zone insurance and so left as quickly as they could. As a result, British service personnel—and the RAF in particular—ended up feeding US military forces as well as their own.
	There were many examples of coalition forces working together, often without all the necessary equipment, and often not in the environment in which they would choose to fight. But that is what war is all about. It is not an exact science, although it is crucial that we learn the lessons about support and supply by contractors.
	I turn now to a matter that interests me greatly, the Defence Aviation Repair Agency. That agency is crucial to the recommendations in the report, and especially to the lessons that must be learned. What is clear is that the military cannot be asked to depend and rely on private sector techniques when it comes to the supply of components and essential equipment.
	Having the proper equipment is vital. Enough of it must be held in store so that troops going into battle are adequately protected and supplied. A total reliance on private sector providers and on just-in-time supply could end in disaster. The report makes that clear, and it is right for the Government to look at the role of agencies in the Ministry of Defence. They offer all the benefits of a commercial organisation, and operate according to business and commercial imperatives, but remain wholly owned subsidiaries of the Ministry of Defence. They are able to compete with any private sector organisation in respect of component supply, deep repair and maintenance, but they remain integral parts of the MOD.
	Those agencies are able to deliver for the military in the sort of unexpected circumstances that were encountered in the military action in Iraq. It is impossible to predict exactly what is going to happen, but the necessary supplies must be made available. It has been stated that personnel had to fly back to Britain to make sure that they got the equipment that they needed, but the Defence Aviation Repair Agency is an organisation that can meet all the demands of the taxpayer when it comes to value for money. Most importantly, it retains the surge capacity to meet the demands that arise when military action is taken.
	One lesson to be drawn from the report, and from our experience in Iraq, is that the Government would do well to look the role played by such agencies. They are vital in ensuring that military personnel are put into the field, and sustained there. The agencies are not subject to the vagaries suffered by contractors and purely commercial organisations.
	I am delighted that the Defence Aviation Repair Agency has appointed a new chief executive. He used to work for Rolls-Royce, and I hope to meet him very shortly. I am sure that we will discuss some of the lessons to be drawn from this excellent report.
	Our soldiers were not placed at risk. No one should believe that. To say that they were is merely a piece of populist scaremongering. It is unfortunate that the Opposition should have decided to take that approach today. The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), rightly began by paying tribute to the military's huge success in Iraq. If he had sat down then, this debate could have allowed us to pay tribute to the outstanding work of our servicemen and women and to have a serious discussion of the recommendations in the NAO report. Instead. the House was treated to a lot of petty and ill informed references to our forces' exposure to alleged risks that simply did not exist.

Mike Hancock: rose—

Michael Portillo: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call Mr. Michael Portillo.

John Smith: I have not finished yet, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I give way to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock).

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should make his intentions clear. He sat down, and I would have been entitled to conclude that, after 20-odd minutes, he had finished his speech. Mr. Hancock.

Mike Hancock: I think the rest of the House is with you on that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) has highlighted the fact that the report does not decry the efforts of the men and women who fought and won this war. However, it does identify a number of respects in which the Government failed to deliver. The Government promised that they would make sure that the men and women fighting on our behalf were properly equipped, and the report makes it clear that that did not happen. The hon. Gentleman has not explained that failure.

John Smith: I have not explained it because that is not what the report says. If we read the report, we see that it says that the military operation was a success, the support for our troops, especially in relation to chemical and biological weapons, was good, and the logistical operation was an outstanding success overall. That is what the report actually says. I am sure that time will be taken up by hon. Members trying—as the hon. Gentleman is already trying—to cast aspersions on the role of our forces and on the way in which they conducted themselves on the battlefield—

Mike Hancock: indicated dissent.

John Smith: Oh yes. And nothing could be further from the truth.Our forces had to move their massive operation from the north of the country to the south of the country, they won the battle within four weeks when some were predicting that it could take months, and they were up against a formidable enemy.
	I have heard it said since the operation was completed that the Iraqi army was not a threat and that its military command was in disarray. That is simply not true. It was preparing for military assault and had probably based its preparation on observing Kosovo, as it clearly expected a long-drawn-out air bombardment followed by a land attack. Nothing could have been further from the truth. We moved in with such speed, agility and flexibility that we were able to win the war relatively quickly. We could not have done that had we not undertaken a strategic defence review and reconfigured our forces to make them agile, flexible and rapid, enabling us to put forward an expeditionary force of that nature in such a hostile environment. That is why I congratulate the Government on their leadership through this difficult period.
	I have finished now, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Michael Portillo: I have an interest to declare because I am a director of BAE Systems plc. Most of my speech, however, will be about boots, clothing and spares for land vehicles, which are not products for which BAE is particularly noted.
	I must say to the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) that among a number of rather foolish things that he said, particularly towards the end of his remarks, he suggested that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) had raised this matter for party political reasons. My hon. Friend's reputation goes before him. His reputation as the Minister for the Armed Forces under the previous Government established clearly in the minds of the House and in the minds of the armed forces that he speaks because of his concern for the condition and welfare of our armed forces. For that reason, what he said today carried a great deal of weight. As this is my first opportunity to congratulate him on his appointment, may I say that he makes a most splendid, slender adornment to the Front Bench?
	Without wearying the House too much, I hope, I want to echo the congratulations to the Secretary of State on the distinguished public service order medal that he has received. I repeat that simply because I am a former holder of his office, and I therefore know that that award is not given lightly by the United States Government. In addition, it is the highest award for which he was eligible, and he has every reason to be extremely proud of it.
	This is a most interesting report, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex balanced the weight that he gave to its positive comments about the deployment with the criticisms raised. I want to reflect that balance in my remarks if possible. It is perfectly true that 36,000 personnel were deployed. Interestingly, the report reminds us what the objectives of the exercise were and how quickly they were achieved. The first objective was the removal of Saddam's regime, which was accomplished within four weeks, and the second was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. A number of Labour Members of Parliament might reflect ruefully on how that second challenge turned out to be slightly less steep and difficult than the Government had presented to the House. It was four weeks to victory, however, which was indeed an extraordinary accomplishment.
	The report also reminds us of the particular areas in which praise was due to our armed forces: the successfully accomplished activities of the Amphibious Task Group; the seizure of the city of Basra, which was accomplished with terrific distinction and valour; and the 2,500-plus sorties flown by the Royal Air Force with great distinction, which made a substantial contribution to the air war.
	A number of references have been made during this debate to the glorious period of Conservative Government some time back now. During our period in office, I do not remember a time when we were able to take much satisfaction over the performance of the Challenger tank, or indeed, any tank. I therefore read with enormous pleasure that the Challenger tank had performed well in Iraq. That was a logistical success because substantial adjustments were required. A dust mitigation plan had to be put into effect following the exercise in Oman in 2001. Appliqué armour was added to the tank, and the report records that the appliqué armour withstood all the assaults that were made on the tank by Iraqi forces. That is extremely good news, and all the more welcome because of the long history of problems with that piece of equipment.

Tam Dalyell: Will the right hon. Gentleman add in his endorsement that those who were in charge of the Challenger tanks, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, performed with distinction?

Michael Portillo: Yes, the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raised this point earlier and rightly received from the Government Front Bench an endorsement of their performance. I am happy to say again that theirs was a most valiant, successful and courageous effort.
	The other thing that I thought worth pointing out on the success side was the achievement of the Defence Transport and Movements Agency. The report records that it went out and secured 50,000 metres linear, as is the expression, of shipping capacity, which enabled the entire force to be lifted in a single movement, which is a terrific success.
	I want to endorse one point made by the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan, which is that the report reminds us that this was not the long war that many Members of the House had predicted. We did not fight hand to hand for weeks on end in Baghdad, as many had predicted. There were not an atrocious number of civilian casualties, as many had also predicted. Although the theme of this debate is accountability, I want to point out that those right hon. and hon. Members who make those gloomy predictions, and, by the way, who do so with fantastic monotony—in one campaign after another, we have to put up with what these doomsters predict for us—are never held to account. They never come back to the House to be asked why it is that once again they have got things wrong, and have contributed to lowering national morale at a time when we were about to deploy our forces.

Andrew Murrison: Would not my right hon. Friend agree, however, that many in the House were misled by the Government, who said that there were weapons of mass destruction, which has signally not been demonstrated? Members of the House are entitled to make the kind of predictions to which he has referred given the misinformation by the Government?

Michael Portillo: I have already alluded, in perhaps a slightly flippant way, to the shortcomings of the information given to us by the Government in that respect, and I shall refer to that again later. Leaving aside for a moment the question of weapons of mass destruction, many of the other predictions made by right hon. and hon. Members were woefully askew of the truth and even of what was likely. We never see those people coming back to the House to talk about why they got things so wrong, however.
	I did not get the impression from the Secretary of State today that his attitude was what one would expect from a man who was willing to learn the lessons. In line with what the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan said, those in the armed forces will of course understand that things go wrong. What they will expect from him, however, is an attitude of mind that means that he wants to absorb those lessons and make things better for the future. In that respect, if I may say so, the Secretary of State's demeanour this afternoon was unfortunate. To make a general comment, it is not his performance that generally gets him into difficulty but his demeanour.

Jim Knight: I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman's comments about the Secretary of State. Has he read part 7 of the report, which is headed, "The Department has a comprehensive process for identifying lessons"? The report says clearly that the Secretary of State's Department is learning the lessons, identifying them, and moving forward as the House would expect.

Michael Portillo: If one theme of today's debate is accountability, the other is leadership. The conviction with which the lesson-learning capability is pursued, and the success of the process, will depend crucially on the attitude of the Secretary of State. That is what leadership in the Department is all about. If the feeling runs through the Department that the Secretary of State thinks these matters need not be addressed urgently, and that it was more important to come here and make a political case than to show slightly more humility and say that things needed to be put right, a difficulty will be created.

Geoff Hoon: I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman's observations. At the risk of appearing to plead the case for my defence, let me assure him that I commissioned the lesson-learning process undertaken by the Department. I made it clear, as I made it clear to the House today, that I wanted it to be rigorous, and did not want anyone to gloss over any of the difficulties that we face. The clear implication of that is that I want the lessons to be learnt properly. If I gave the right hon. Gentleman or the House the impression that I was not taking criticisms seriously, the right hon. Gentleman should accept that I was responsible for demanding that the Department look hard at the lessons that we had to learn.

Michael Portillo: That would have made an outstanding paragraph in the Secretary of State's speech. I am sorry that we have had to drag it out of him now.
	The criticisms relate to serious matters. For instance, 40 per cent. of the necessary uniforms and boots were not available by the time of the conflict. We have already discussed nuclear, biological and chemical suits at length, but I must echo a point made by both my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Hugh Robertson) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), which is that it is particularly extraordinary that there should have been deficiencies in that regard, given the Government's emphasis on weapons of mass destruction in their original case for the war.
	If politics is about one thing, it is about priorities. If the Secretary of State and his colleagues had made the case for the war on the basis that we must get rid of weapons of mass destruction, what could have been a greater priority for them than to equip the armed forces thoroughly so that they could meet that threat? That was a lacuna in the Secretary of State's speech. At one point there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing across the Chamber over whether filters were necessary for the protection of troops. I did not feel that that did the Secretary of State any credit; it would have been better had he said much earlier that the filters had been necessary, and that he was sorry they had not been provided.
	Some of the deficiencies led to almost farcical situations. The engines and main assemblies for combat vehicles could not be tracked down, although the Defence Logistics Organisation held information about the supplies. Because those in the field could not be sure that they would receive the equipment—although it was in the chain of supply—they had to "cannibalise" equipment in Germany to acquire duplicates. The Lynx anti-tank helicopter was available for only 53 per cent. of the time—the entire span of time, that is, not just the combat period.
	The report is too fair to the Government in one respect. It makes the point—repeated by a number of Members today—that deployment took half the time that it took for the first Gulf war, but this war was seen coming much earlier than that one. No one knew at the end of July 1990 that Kuwait would be invaded, but our forces were in action in January the following year. In this case we saw the possibility of action in Iraq at least a year before it happened—some would say as long ago as 9/11, and, according to Paul O'Neill, the former US Treasury Secretary, as long ago as the day on which President Bush came to office.
	Let me remind the Secretary of State that boots and uniforms are small items that could have been stocked without any implication that the Government were disingenuously and dishonestly planning for war. These are the bills for those items: desert boots £742,000, desert trousers £886,800, jackets about £1 million. Those are tiny amounts. Surely the Secretary of State had discretion to spend those amounts during the period before the war in order to ensure that our forces had the necessary equipment, given what was becoming a likelihood of their being deployed in a hot weather area.

Jim Knight: Does the right hon. Gentleman not recall the fevered political atmosphere and intense media scrutiny in the run-up to military action? If the media had been able to report the procurement of those items and their deployment in theatre, that would have demonstrated that military action was inevitable and that the whole United Nations process was a sham. The point at which the UN process collapsed was the point at which the items could go into theatre.

Michael Portillo: The hon. Gentleman speaks with appalling frankness. He underlines the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex, when the hon. Gentleman was probably not in the Chamber. My hon. Friend's point was that a lack of political will, courage and commitment led to the failure to order the equipment. I am allowing for that, however. Even given a Government who lacked those qualities, I believe that the Secretary of State could have ordered uniforms and boots without upsetting the entire United Nations process—or without anyone being led to think that it was being upset.
	Let me say a little about the post-war position. As has been said, the report refers to a lack of preparation, but our forces have performed a brilliant post-war improvisation for which they deserve congratulations. Their success in Basra, and the way in which they have operated as an occupying force, is most impressive. I concede that Basra is an easier place than Baghdad in which to operate, and I do not think that we should jump to drawing facile comparisons between British and American forces, but I still think that what our forces have achieved is superb.
	I say this to people who are going around spreading gloom. Of course our forces are in great danger from terrorism in Iraq today, but our history—particularly in Northern Ireland—suggests that there are many things we could do to overcome the terrorist threat, which would rapidly improve the situation and our forces' security. One possibility is the establishment of intelligence. Now that we are there and now that the Americans have been in theatre for some time, intelligence assets and the flow of intelligence are much improved. A second option is the disruption of the enemy's leadership. Clearly, the seizure of Saddam Hussein is a signal accomplishment in that regard. Thirdly, operational matters could be reviewed and changed. I am thinking particularly of the flying of helicopters by the United States.
	This, I think, is the charge against the Secretary of State today. While the award he has received from the United States indicates that his strategic leadership was probably of a high order—that is obviously the opinion of the United States—I think that he has been responsible for important failures in his attention to detail. I think there was a lack of political courage at the end of 2002 which prevented the ordering of vital equipment, a failure to establish clear priorities, and a lack of political nous—a lack of understanding of what it was possible to do without matters being made public, or being seen to have broader implications than they actually had.
	Until the Secretary of State intervened a moment ago, I thought that he had brought to the House a rather complacent tone that would not inspire confidence among the armed forces that he would heed the lessons that needed to be learnt. It might be useful if, in responding to the debate, the Minister of State demonstrated a humbler approach on the Government's part.
	Let us hope that our forces will return safely at the appropriate time, so that we and their families can welcome them—just as the House took pleasure in welcoming the safe return of my hon. Friends the Members for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) and for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne).

Edward Leigh: As Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, I do not wish to pre-empt my Committee's hearing on the operation next week. The recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff at the National Audit Office, however, raises important issues on which the Committee will focus when taking evidence from Ministry of Defence officials, including the permanent secretary.
	First, let me join others in paying tribute to the gallantry of the men and women of our armed forces whom we sent to fight in Iraq on our behalf. I congratulate those whose job was to deliver, support and recover them over such great distances. The United Kingdom coalition forces achieved their main military objectives: that must be said for the sake of balance. They removed Saddam Hussein and his regime and gained control of key locations and infrastructure within just four weeks. As the National Audit Office reports, UK forces, amounting to more than 45,000 personnel and 15,000 vehicles, were deployed in half the time taken for the first Gulf war.
	I note the important point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo), but the fact is that those forces were deployed in time. Equipment performed well: production of the Storm Shadow cruise missile was brought forward and it was used to hit targets in Iraq. The troubled SA80 assault rifle, now upgraded, appeared to be a much more reliable performer. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea and others mentioned the Challenger 2 main battle tank. When my Committee examined the earlier exercise in Oman, it found that the tank suffered from major problems with sand entering its air filters, but, once properly modified for desert conditions, it performed impressively.
	In the interest of balance—I am not here to make party political points—I reiterate that the Secretary of State said that, overall, the logistic effort was successful and key equipment was delivered. The Secretary of State made that point many times, and we accept it, but we are now talking about a National Audit Office report. The National Audit Office is perfectly entitled, within the totality of a successful effort, to draw attention to particular shortcomings. Underlying the overall success, there were some difficulties, where major performance improvements need to be made. My Committee will be asking tough questions of the permanent secretary next week.
	There are two particular aspects of concern: first, the lack of protective kit for troops in the front line; and the failure yet again of logistic systems, leading to confusion about the location of key supplies. The National Audit Office report makes it abundantly clear that our troops at the front line were short of a range of vital equipment when the war began. I find it astonishing that we could send our men and women into action without the right kit. For example, there was a lack of potentially life-saving body armour. Incredibly, as has been said by others, given the rationale for the war, our forces were short of vital biological and chemical warfare protection equipment, and they were again short of the correct desert clothing and boots. What lay behind that unsatisfactory state of affairs?
	The National Audit Office has reported that the Ministry of Defence did not have enough supplies of important items on the shelves, including chemical and biological warfare protection equipment, spares for armoured vehicles and the right desert clothing. We do not need to engage in a party political debate to apportion blame between the parties, but we do need—I look carefully at the Minister as I say this—to talk about mistakes in an honest and open way, and learn from them.

Adam Ingram: And objectively.

Edward Leigh: I entirely agree with the Minister. Indeed, that is how my Committee will try to act, as it does after and before every conflict.
	Much of the £600 million made available by the Treasury was used to address the shortages, some of which, as we know, the Ministry of Defence had been aware of for several years. Such urgent procurement action carries a number of risks, which became apparent. For example, some equipment or stock purchased urgently was not available in time. Only 40 per cent. of the extra desert clothing was delivered by the time that UK forces had taken Basra, and modifications to the AS90 self-propelled gun, to enable it to work properly in the hottest desert conditions, were not fitted until the war-fighting phase was over. The Ministry now has to take cognisance of the point made several times during the debate that the circumstances were different from those of the first Gulf war. In the light of what happened in Operation Saif Sareea, such difficulties were obviously going to arise.
	The last-minute procurement also means limited time to train on new arms. For example, the National Audit Office report tells us that the Minimi light machine gun was issued to battle groups of the 7th Armoured Brigade less than a week before hostilities began, with few spare parts and without the equipment for zeroing the weapons. The failure to have the right stocks was compounded by the Ministry of Defence assuming that there would be time for suppliers to make up the shortages before going to war. In many examples, such as desert clothing, that was not the case.
	I make no comment about what was going on in the political process at the time. It may have had an impact, but surely it was all foreseeable. Surely it was obvious many months earlier that a war in the desert was likely, and the kit could have been purchased in time. In next week's hearing—and, I hope, in our report—we will press the Ministry of Defence on why that was not done. The late delivery of the urgent items meant either that our troops did not have important pieces of equipment, or that, when it arrived at the last minute, they had little opportunity to familiarise themselves with new weapons and equipment.

Colin Breed: I put it to the hon. Gentleman that the shortages were caused by a reduction in stockholdings, supposedly to reduce costs. When things have to be procured at the last moment, it is easy to be the victim of those who are prepared to sell them at a certain price. The perceived cost saving is often illusory and one can end up paying as much, if not more, than if an item was in stock in the first place.

Edward Leigh: That is a fair point, but I do not believe that so far we have discovered any instances of war profiteering, which clearly took place in previous conflicts. Still, as I said, the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but is it the best way to send our soldiers into battle—in the wrong clothing, missing vital items and with unfamiliar weapons?
	Another major cause of the shortages is all too familiar to my Committee. The National Audit Office reported that in several cases equipment made it to Kuwait, but the lack of an effective logistics tracking system prevented it from being delivered to the front line. The report paints a picture of muddle and confusion. Troops who should have been preparing themselves for the forthcoming conflict were forced to search containers scattered across Kuwait for supplies that had gone missing.
	I make the point to the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith)—he has unfortunately had to leave after making his comments this afternoon—that we all recognise that in the fog of war it is not easy to track assets to and through the front line, but it surely would have been possible, given all the warning that we had and in the light of modern technology, to have had a better asset-tracking system in the rear areas in Kuwait. That is the point. I fully accept what the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan said. We realise, given the vast amount of supplies being issued, that it is far more difficult and complicated to get a system that works for the Ministry of Defence than it is to track supplies across a supermarket. Everyone knows that and everyone agrees with the Secretary of State when he says that it is a difficult problem. However, with enough thought and commitment, the problem can be overcome.
	The most disturbing example is probably that the biological and chemical filters for armoured vehicles had disappeared—a point made several times in the debate. When the war started, none of our armed vehicles had the working filters. Indeed, by the time that National Audit Office staff went to Iraq in June 2003, they had still not appeared. We should be thankful that Saddam Hussein's regime did not, in the event, have the dreadful weapons ready for use against our forces, but it is not good enough for the Ministry of Defence to give the impression, as did the Secretary of State in the debate, that the filters were not needed because the troops inside the vehicles would have had the right clothing. How could they perform adequately in those conditions? That point was well made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea, so I shall not labour it, and my Committee can return to it.
	Every report that my Committee has produced for major operations—from the first Gulf war onwards—has highlighted the supply tracking issue. Time and again the inability to track supplies has caused significant difficulties. Time and again, the Ministry of Defence has assured us that the problem is being addressed. We will ask the MOD to assure us that implementation of its own lessons and the repeated recommendations from Committees of the House are taken seriously.
	In reply to my predecessor's report on operations in Iraq in 1990–91, we were assured that action had been taken to improve both the management of movements and the tracking of assets, and that the Department had developed for its own use those commercial systems that it considered represented best practice. I emphasise the fact that the Ministry of Defence said that in 1991, which is quite a long time ago—long before the recent conflict. Following my predecessor's report on operations in the former Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s, and on operations three years later in Kosovo, the MOD was again promising improvements to its systems. Yet last year, my Committee was still concerned about asset tracking on the exercise in Oman. The House, speaking on behalf of British troops, who will doubtless be sent to war again, has the right to ask what is going on inside the MOD, and whether sufficient commitment is being shown on this issue.

Nicholas Soames: When my hon. Friend looks at these matters in his capacity as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, will he ensure that an examination is made of the lessons that could have been implemented post-Operation Saif Sareea 2, in Oman? They could have made a significant difference to the logistical supply in Operation Telic, and such information is highlighted in figure 12 of the NAO report.

Edward Leigh: I am very grateful for that intervention, and I shall myself refer to figure 12, which is a key element of the report. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about this issue. We did report on Operation Saif Sareea and we made a number of recommendations. We gave credit to the MOD, particularly with regard to the main battle tank. Of course, there was a lot of publicity about that issue at the time. It was meat and water to the tabloid press that our tanks could not perform properly. But the tabloid press do not necessarily go on about an asset-tracking system, because it is not in the forefront of political debate. Given that the MOD offered absolute assurances in respect of 1990–91 and the mid-1990s, my Committee and others have a right to ask why so little has been done. It is right to point out that our report should highlight that fact, and we should be prepared to return to this issue.
	One or two others have mentioned the post-war part of the operation, but even so, perhaps not enough emphasis has been placed on it. It is clear that since the end of major fighting, our forces in southern Iraq have made a fantastic effort to improve security and the quality of life of its people. The NAO report clearly pays tribute to our troops and to the MOD, but it also points out that the armed forces could not be expected to meet the post-war challenge alone, and that, in the early stages, they were not properly supported by either Government Departments or coalition agencies. I am sure that shortly, my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), who is aware of what was going on, will be able to address these points with far more local knowledge than I ever could. However, it is clear that extra planning was needed, and that extra help should have been given to our armed forces. It was clear for some time that the war was likely, yet the Government failed to produce a co-ordinated plan in the aftermath of the conflict.
	I have tried during my brief remarks to give credit where it is due, but also to do my duty and to point to deficiencies where they exist; indeed, that is the role of the NAO and the PAC. What is now important is to ensure that these lessons are not just commented on and are the subject of this important debate, but are learned and followed through. We will not only question the permanent secretary closely next week, I myself shall ask the Comptroller and Auditor General—I cannot order him; I can only ask him—to consider returning to this subject in a year or two, so that we can test the MOD on what lessons have been learned. We owe nothing less to our troops.

Desmond Swayne: Following as I do the outstanding analysis by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), I am put under a certain amount of pressure. I shall endeavour not to lower the tone of the debate and to maintain the standard that they have set, although to do so will be difficult.
	I want to deal with part 5 of the report, and particularly paragraphs 5.8 to 5.10, which deal with the contribution of the reservists. Before doing so, I draw the House's attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. I recall sitting in Nasirya and reading in a rather dated Sunday broadsheet, perhaps some two weeks after it was published, a criticism of our policy of deploying reservists for Operation Telic and Operation Telic 2. It said that that amounted to conscription on a scale not seen since the Korean war and the Suez crisis. I thought, "That is a monstrous travesty that bears no relation at all to the truth." Members of the reserves are not conscripts. Those who sign up to a Territorial or other reservist commitment are made fully aware of their liability. Equally, I do not believe that anyone signs up to the armed forces, be it regular or reserve, without some hope that they will actually see operations. Nobody wants to spend their military career back at the depot, training or counting blankets.
	The reality is that a compulsory call-out notice actually provides liberation for many reservists who perhaps would have liked to serve and to meet an FTRS—full-time reserve service—commitment of some sort, but who were unable, because of the commitments imposed by family or career, suddenly to enjoy the relative financial advantage and job security presented and guaranteed to them by a call-out notice. Such a notice would enable them to do what they always wanted to do, which is serve in the armed forces; indeed, that was certainly the case for me. However, I should point out to Ministers that we should treat that situation with great caution and care. Ministers are right to say that employers have been very tolerant during Operations Granby and Telic—more so than we might have anticipated.
	The armed services themselves have taken great account of employers' needs. For example, the Ministry of Defence has allowed 70 per cent. of appeals against the call-up of key employees, so there has been give and take on both sides. But the difficulty will come if we continue to maintain a high-tempo use of reservists on what have become low-intensity peacekeeping operations on only a medium scale. If we go on at that rate, we will quickly exhaust the reserves.
	I thoroughly enjoyed my commitment, but I have family and I have now come back and have a career to resume. Indeed, that is the case for many individuals, who are quite prepared to put their civilian career and family on the back-burner because their country needs them in an emergency. Those people have done their six months, and it is very difficult to tell them in 12 or 18 months' time, "We need you again." We are entitled to ask them to serve again, because they have signed up to that commitment, but for how long would employers be prepared to wear that, in a situation that could not be described as a national emergency? We would quickly find that being a member of the reserve forces became a badge of unemployment, because only people without proper jobs would be able so to serve. There are those who are serial mobilisers—who always want to go on operations. They are very important and welcome, but they are a minority. The reserve forces would be very much the poorer without the people with proper jobs who make such commitments.
	While out in the Gulf, I read a considerable amount of press comment to the effect that the participation of the reserves had been something of a disaster: no kit and no pay, and the regular Army short-toured and pushed off, leaving the reservists in theatre. It really was not like that at all.
	I shall consider those issues in reverse order. The first is tour length. Given the administrative burden and expense of mobilising reservists—for every Territorial Army soldier mobilised, one and a half must be called out, whereas for regular Army reservists the ratio is eight to one—I can understand the desire to make maximum use of them. However, reservists are volunteers and must feel that they are being treated fairly. The sense of unfairness that arose when regular Army personnel were seen to have short tours and TA personnel were given longer ones was caused not by discrimination but by the lack of a policy. It is now the policy that if a reservist goes out into theatre in service with a formed unit, he will return with that unit. If he goes out as an augmentee, he will serve six months. At least that policy gives reservists an end-of-tour date, which is vital for those with civilian careers.
	On the issue of pay, it should have been predictable that there would be an enormous strain on the Army's administrative structure in delivering pay to those individuals who had been called out. We must not underestimate the anxiety caused to those individuals—fortunately, they were relatively few—who had problems with their pay. It is an enormous strain to be mobilised, sent far from home and have agonised calls from one's wife saying that bills have to be paid but the cheque has not arrived. We have solved that problem at a stroke by allowing the mobilisation structure at Chilwell to set up the pay accounts.
	The reservists' principal grievance arises from the fact that the reserve standard allowance—the element of the pay that compensates them for the loss of their civilian earnings, which can be much higher—has been bound by rank constraints that are inappropriate in civilian life. The decision to abandon that constraint will wipe out that grievance, and I ask the Minister to confirm when that policy will be implemented, if it has not been implemented already.
	The final issue is the lack of kit. When I reached the Gulf in early July, there was no problem with the supply of any of the items that have been mentioned. However, I cannot understand why we make body armour for an army of midgets. Finding a suit of armour that fitted was a problem throughout the theatre of operations. I could not find one to accommodate my girth and I do not usually have a problem in that respect.
	There was no shortage of supply, but I spoke to many people who had been in the Gulf for Telic 1 and who were very angry about kit shortages. The Secretary of State made considerable amends in his intervention in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea, but in his own speech he gave the impression that because the operation was a success, we got away with it and everything was all right. He may not have meant to give that impression, and indeed he confirmed that in the subsequent intervention. However, we have been trying to draw attention to the fact that we have been taught that lesson before. We got away with it then, so we have carried on as before. Our point, in this debate, is that the failings could have been catastrophic. The principal reason given for the invasion of Iraq was its possession of WMD, and if they had been utilised we would be talking not about the success of the operation, but about the heavy and avoidable casualties. It was therefore appropriate to deal with the issue in precisely the way my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) did.
	I wish to put down a marker with respect to chapter 6 of the report, which states, in point 6.4:
	"It was a Government wide responsibility to plan for the post-conflict period."
	The report continues with measured and fairly light criticism of the Government's preparations, but that does not do justice to the lack of preparations that prevailed. The Secretary of State says that we must accept the report's conclusions and not cherry-pick, but I do not follow his logic. The report does not do justice to the Government's failure to plan for post-war reconstruction. We did fantastically well, as hon. Members have said. It is incredible that the British Army is able to move so swiftly and seamlessly from a high-intensity war role to a peace support operation requiring the most delicate touch. The Army is magnificent at that. It is also magnificent at improvising and flying by the seat of its pants.
	One of the strengths of the regular Army was identifying the skills of reservists from their civilian careers and using them effectively in the reconstruction efforts. For example, those people whose job it is to build electricity pylons in the UK have been deployed to do just that in Iraq. However, everyone to whom I spoke thought it was obvious that we had no plan for after the war. That is equally true of the US, but it is not good enough to say, "Oh well, the US did not have a plan and it was the principal partner in the enterprise." The Opposition attempted to draw attention to the deficit in at least four debates in this Chamber in the build-up to the war. We were reassured and told that the matter was in hand, but it was not. I do not blame the MOD, because the deficit lies more with the Department for International Development. Therefore I shall not pursue the point any further in this debate, but I put down a marker on this subject because it is one to which I shall definitely return in future.

Andrew Murrison: It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne). He and I are at risk of boring for Britain on the subject of Iraq for many years to come. I suspect that he would agree that by the time that we arrived in theatre, the logistics were good. However, the report deals with the phase before our arrival—the fighting of the war and immediately thereafter—and I shall confine my attention to that.
	I declare an interest, in that I am a reservist and underwent compulsory mobilisation as part of Operation Telic between 15 September and 7 November. I was honoured to serve with 40 Regiment Royal Artillery near Az Zubayr in southern Iraq. I had the pleasure of meeting the Secretary of State for Defence at Saddam's garish palace on the Shatt al-Arab at Basra, when we exchanged a few words. The Minister of State will not be aware that he and I narrowly avoided one another at Shaibah, when his Sea King helicopter disappeared in an impressive plume of dust just as I arrived in my battlefield ambulance. I understood from a conversation with colleagues shortly thereafter that the Minister promised them lots of extra money for Defence Medical Services, for which they were most grateful. The hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) will also be grateful because he was particularly exercised earlier about the plight of the defence medical services.
	Operation Telic was an extraordinary exercise in logistics. In the shock and awe of battle, it is easy to forget that all operations have a long and complex logistics tail that is just as much part of the success of the operation as the biting part. It has become fashionable to identify a scapegoat and there is a risk that the logisticians will win that role. One of them pointed out to me that the fault lies with their political masters—of course it does—in saying that the provisioning of our forces should be just in time, not just in case. That is in marked contrast with the Americans. Those of us who have visited Iraq, including Ministers, will have seen the huge American logistics operation by contrast with our own. Their business is far bigger than ours for sure, but the Americans subscribe to the belief that they need to prepare for all eventualities in a way we do not—contrasting our empty shelves with the Americans' full shelves.
	We have heard about the tragedy of Sergeant Roberts, who lost his life through want of body armour. When I was in Iraq I spoke to a number of servicemen and women who had been involved in the handover of ceramic armour plating to personnel deemed to be at greater risk. Apart from the tragedy that that obviously invites, do Ministers have any idea of the extent to which such an incident can affect the morale of troops? In operations such as Telic, there is no front line or reserve. Everyone is in it together. Have Ministers reflected on how difficult it must be for a field commander to administer such a situation? There is great unhappiness about that particular incident, which to my mind was completely avoidable.
	It is not just having stacks of kit on shelves that matters. Quality is also an issue. A Warminster lady wrote to me during the summer about her Royal Marine grandson who sent her a plaintive letter asking for kit to be bought from Milletts and sent to him, because his standard-issue boots and much else besides had disintegrated. They were not "fit for purpose".
	Before Christmas I asked the Prime Minister why military vehicles were not fitted with the kit necessary to protect them fully from incoming missiles. I questioned why our troops had to put up with pieces of chicken wire strung across windscreens for their protection. I was told that the vehicle protection kits would not be comprehensively fitted until well into the new year—despite the excellent Army repair organisation based in Warminster, which is ready and able to get that job done.
	The Secretary of State has presided over a veritable explosion of small to medium-scale operations since 1997 and had a long lead-in to the Iraq conflict. There was plenty of time to lay in sufficient body armour, ensure that desert boots would not melt in the heat and arrange for vehicle protection kits to be comprehensively fitted. A myriad other deficiencies are cited in the NAO report. In our congratulatory mood, it is important to remember that we are not here to congratulate the Government on a successful operation but to suggest ways in which the situation might be improved for the future. I hope that when the Minister winds up, he will echo the belated remarks of the Secretary of Secretary of State extracted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo).
	I refer next to the reserve forces that were so crucial to Operation Telic. I was rather chuffed to receive recently in the post—I suspect in common with thousands of other reservists—a certificate signed in facsimile by the Secretary of State. It thanked me for my service in Iraq and for
	"the valuable contribution you have made to the nation's defence."
	My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West may have received such a certificate.

Desmond Swayne: No.

Andrew Murrison: If not, that is something to which he can look forward. Perhaps the Secretary of State was being ironic, because at the risk of sounding churlish, whatever Operation Telic was about it had little to do with the defence of the nation—as I thought Ministers had by now admitted.
	The reserve forces are now much more than territorials engaged in the defence of the homeland, so the change of designation from Territorial Army to Army Reserve makes a great deal of sense. It will be warmly welcomed by my reservist colleagues as overdue recognition of the fact that they truly stand shoulder to shoulder with their Regular Army counterparts.
	Saying that reservists will be used increasingly as an arm of Government foreign policy but that their strength will be cut by 15 per cent makes little sense. Ministers cannot expect to dip into a contracting pool of reserves at will. If people with day jobs in civilian life are repeatedly put upon, they will vote with their feet. I am staggered by the extent to which the Government are taking reservists and their employers for granted. The National Audit Office report claims that the MOD has recognised that financial assistance is necessary to prevent reservists from being disadvantaged because of mobilisation. I will give the Minister a small example. Reservists returning from theatre can be forgiven for being cynical on discovering that months of operational service will not count in full towards their annual reserve commitment. To discharge that commitment, they will have to tell their families and employers that they will have to spend a couple of weekends square bashing in Aldershot. That seems absolute nonsense. It is a good example of the way in which reservists are disadvantaged and of why they might decide that enough is enough and leave. If reservists do not make that choice, in many cases their families will do so.
	Most employers are sympathetic to releasing staff during the acute phase of a conflict—particularly if they perceive that the conflict has to do with the security of the homeland. Employers become rather less enthusiastic when it seems that their good will is being abused. Last year I asked Ministers which employers they had met to discuss future commitments to Iraq, as it seems that Operation Telic is likely to run and run. Apparently the big conversation does not extend to the Ministry of Defence, because we understand that no such meetings have been held. Recent years have seen conflicts in Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq—all of which means that Ministers have had plenty of practice in the sort of conflict that the Government predict for the future. There can be no excuse for not getting it right next time. I hope that our servicemen and women—regulars and reservists—can look forward to the Government taking on board the learning points that the NAO has kindly offered up in its helpful contribution.

James Gray: I begin by paying a warm tribute on behalf of Members on both sides of the House, and on behalf of all members of the Territorial Army, to my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), who spoke so well about several TA issues, and to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne). Both of them spoke with huge knowledge both about what happened during Operation Telic and about what is happening to the TA and the reserves in general. I hope that the Ministry of Defence and others will listen carefully to what they said. Both my hon. Friends made important speeches from the point of view of their colleagues in the TA, who will very much respect the fact that they have spoken so well for them today.
	I shall not try to replicate what other Members have said so well about the detail of the National Audit Office report. Issues were raised about nuclear, biological and chemical protection, in terms of indicators and filters for military vehicles. There have been questions about desert combat kit, which is terribly important and was in extremely short supply, and about body armour. The terrible and worrying case of the sergeant has been mentioned twice, but it may not be the only one to have arisen owing to the shortage of body armour.
	It is interesting that 200,000 sets of body armour were produced at the time of Kosovo. I understand that currently there are about 94,000 soldiers in the British Army, so if my arithmetic is right there are two sets of body armour for each of them, including all those who were left at home. How there could have been a shortage of the stuff in the Gulf and how—as my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West said—it could have been designed for midgets astonishes me.
	I join my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) and others in paying a huge tribute to the logistic operations during Operation Telic. My visit to Iraq as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme confirmed that by and large we put 46,000 troops in broadly speaking the right places, with broadly speaking the right equipment. It is right to pay tribute to the armed services and to the logistics organisations. I pay particular tribute to two organisations in my constituency, the 9 Supply Regiment—one of the two supply regiments responsible for getting all the kit out to the Gulf—based at Lavington, and RAF Lineham, whose Hercules also played a significant part in transporting the kit.
	I have visited the two port and maritime regiments, one of which is regular and the other TA, which, in turn, manned the ports at Southampton and at Umm Qasr. The TA unit served for nine months; there is only one such unit and any operation overseas depends on its service. I pay tribute to all those units.
	By and large, it is right to say that the logistics operation was a superb success, but that is not to diminish the criticisms in the NAO report. I was puzzled by the Secretary of State's remarks earlier, as he seemed to be saying that because the overall military operation was successful we should not ask questions about the means whereby that success was achieved. We accept that the operation was successful; there is no question about that. None the less, it is reasonable that we should ask questions about deficiencies in the kit and equipment or about the general conduct of the campaign. It is important to ensure that such deficiencies do not recur in any subsequent similar engagement. It is ridiculous to suggest that because the NAO report concludes that the overall campaign was good and worked well—I am happy to acknowledge that—it is illegitimate to ask questions about equipment deficiencies.
	The Secretary of State also said that if the military commanders on the ground had said that the troops were not ready they would not have gone in, and that proved that they had all the necessary equipment. That argument seems equally fatuous. Of course the military commanders would not have gone to war if they not had the equipment. Indeed, there would have been an historic national and international scandal had that ever occurred. It is impossible to imagine that such a thing could have ever occurred throughout the long history of the British services. Of course, broadly speaking, the forces had the right amount of equipment to go into battle; it would have been bizarre if the military commanders had said that the forces were not operationally capable of saluting, turning to the right and marching off to do their duty. Of course they did, and we respect that fact.
	To say that that was the case is not to dismiss the criticism that the armed forces did not have all the equipment that they should have had. Of course they went into battle. Of course they were operationally ready to go, but it is none the less legitimate for the House to put questions about some of the deficiencies mentioned by the NAO report and for us to try to ensure that the same things do not happen in any subsequent war.
	When the Minister of State replies to the debate, I hope that he will not try to reiterate the specious argument that because the operation was successful and the military commanders agreed to go into battle it proves that "Everything is all right, Guv". Everything was not all right and the report proves it.

Nicholas Soames: My hon. Friend is making an important point. The decision about when operations should commence was taken in partnership with coalition commanders and, as he suggests, the idea that a British commander would say, "We're not going because we haven't got the right kit," is preposterous. Broadly, the forces had the right equipment. Does he agree, however, that part of the success of our armed forces is their ability to hoist lessons on board and to change? It is puzzling that the important lessons that followed consecutive operations and Saif Sareea do not seem to have been learned. To what does my hon. Friend attribute that?

James Gray: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. He is right. Our services have always been very good at making do and mending. They will achieve what they are told to achieve, irrespective of how poor the standard of their equipment may be. But, as he says, we have had a series of conflicts during the past five to 10 years—probably more than since the second world war: Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the Balkans and Gulf War 1. Operation Saif Sareea 2 is especially important in that context, as the exercise was almost identical to what occurred in Telic. Lessons should have been learned and carried through by the time that Operation Telic occurred a year later.
	One of the most salient points in the NAO report is that the lessons of Saif Sareea 2 had not been learned; they were not put in place for Operation Telic. For example, during Saif Sareea 2 great play was made of the fact that the air filters for the Challenger 2 tanks were not of the correct specification, so they clogged up with sand. The tanks were configured for operation in western Europe where conditions are relatively humid, and the large amount of sand in the air intakes clogged up the filters, although a friend who is a tank commander tells me that standard procedure is to stop the tank every now and again, take out the filters and give them a good bang on the ground, which effectively gets rid of the sand. The failure to do that was part of the problem during Saif Sareea, and the lessons do not yet seem to have been learned.
	The NAO report also mentioned the lack of NBC filters in all armoured vehicles. As I understand it, duff filters are used in training and it is standard operating procedure to remove them from the vehicles as soon as an operation is likely and replace them with effective filters. However, no such filters were supplied to the 25,000 vehicles that were carted out to Iraq.
	It is important that the Government reply to our questions about why all that happened. We all very much hope that this does not happen, but if there is to be another such operation, we need guarantees from the Government that such things will not happen again. The purpose of the debate is to call attention to some of those shortfalls, and I hope that the Government will now learn the lessons of the filters, the body armour and the desert combat kit.
	Some soldiers in my constituency tell me that they were issued with two left boots. That is an Army joke; it happens to be the case. The quartermaster sergeant said, "I'm very sorry; I haven't got a pair of boots for you. I'll give you two left boots and if you bring them back later on, I'll try to exchange them." Equally, some soldiers were issued with the wrong size of boot, and they were told, "Never mind that you are size 12, gentlemen, all I've got is size 7. If you take them just now and bring them back later on, I'll try to exchange them for you." That may be silly, but it is not acceptable.
	I discovered one or two other deficiencies in equipment during my visit to Iraq. Incidentally, I pay tribute to the armed forces parliamentary scheme and Sir Neil Thorne who runs it so extremely well. I was one of half a dozen hon. Members who were the first civilians, apart from Ministers, to visit in Iraq back in the early part of June, and it was superb that we were able to do so. However, one or two things that I picked up there are worth thinking about.
	First, water is absolutely essential in such an operation. One of the biggest changes since the time when I was in the TA is that it is now normal to supply bottled water to troops, but the trouble with bottled water lying around in the sun in a place such as Iraq is that it is almost boiling on the sand. It could not be cooled down, as no water-cooling mechanism was supplied to our troops. It might be worth thinking about that in future.
	It might also be worth thinking about a greater degree of air conditioning, which the Americans have, but we did not have at that stage. Apart from anything else, our computers did not operate because of that lack of air conditioning. There was a significant amount of computer downtime, apparently because of the high temperatures. When I was there, it was 46° C in the shade—120 or 130° F in old terms—and the computer simply seized up in that heat.

John Robertson: rose—

James Gray: I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, who was on the same trip.

John Robertson: Perhaps I can call the hon. Gentleman a friend because, as he rightly suggests, we were in Basra together. Does he agree that the air-conditioned tents that had been promised very early on were also missing and that, in temperatures of 52° C, more of those tents were required, particularly at night, when it did not get much below 45°?

James Gray: The hon. Gentleman is, of course, quite right. Air conditioning may sound like a luxury, but in those conditions in the heat of the summer, it becomes a basic necessity, not only for sleeping and eating accommodation, which was sometimes absolutely oven-like, but for offices. I visited a number of logistics offices where computers and other equipment had seized up and was unable to operate simply because of the heat—leaving aside the personal convenience and comfort of the soldiers involved. We need to find ways to supply units that are air-conditioned more easily or, indeed, little air-conditioning units themselves, which can be easily fitted in ordinary tents. We saw that in some places, where air-conditioning equipment was supplied.
	We must not forget about water-cooling systems. I was struck by the fact that a tank driver discovered that, by some curious means—my science is not good enough to explain—putting a bottle of water into a wet sock and driving it through the desert cools down the water. That was the only means that our soldiers had to make their water palatable. Perhaps we ought to find ways to supply water-cooling equipment in the future.
	I also discovered more serious circumstances when I was out there, and the following story is known. The third echelon—in other words, the people who are right at the very back—were issued with two bullets each at the beginning of Telic 1. The argument might be that they were in the third echelon, right at the back, so they were in no danger and did not need bullets. That would have been a good argument for not issuing them with weapons either, but it is, quite frankly, absurd to issue a weapon with two bullets.
	I believe that that situation was corrected after a couple of months, but during the peak of Telic 1, back on 18 March and thereafter, those soldiers were deployed to Kuwait—quite a long way back from the fighting—with only two bullets. That was silly in itself. One group of people in particular was badly affected: the fuel tanker drivers who were driving from Kuwait to the front line. They, too, had two bullets each, and it was necessary to have a whip-round around the unit and for the boys to chuck their two bullets into a hat so that the tanker drivers who were going up to the front line would have something like a magazine full of bullets. That is just absurd. We were not short of bullets; there was no reason to be quite so sparing with them, but I am told that that story is true. [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head and says that that it is not true, but I went to Iraq and that is what the soldiers told me. I cannot think why they would possibly make it up.

Adam Ingram: I was listening to what the hon. Gentleman was saying and commenting to my Front-Bench colleagues. Those stories may well be anecdotal, but we need to get to the bottom of them. Conservative Members have raised similar issues, which we are investigating, but it is interesting that the report never picked up those stories. If there was an institutional failure, I should have thought it would have come to the fore.

James Gray: I apologise for misinterpreting the shake of the Minister's head. He is right that there was not an institutional failure. The logistical exercise was extremely good overall, given that 46,000 troops found themselves in broadly speaking the right place with broadly speaking the right kit. However, that does not necessarily diminish the importance of highlighting such little instances—although there was probably a perfectly legitimate reason for the situation that I mentioned—to ensure that the same thing does not happen again.
	It is right that all hon. Members are ready to congratulate all aspects of the armed forces on the superb job that they did during Telic 1 and continue to do during Telic 2—and perhaps Telic 3 and 4 and so on—and for us to say that it was a fine operation and that the logistics operation broadly speaking went extremely well. However, it is also entirely legitimate and sensible for Conservative Members to highlight several extremely worrying deficiencies—the problems with nuclear, biological and chemical kit and desert body armour are especially worrying. We do that not to have a pop at the Government, because I broadly congratulate them on what they did, but so that we can ensure that the same deficiencies do not arise in the future.
	I hope that the Minister will not wind up the debate by using a party political self-defence mechanism and asking, "Why are you saying these awful things about us?" I would prefer him to come to the Dispatch Box to say, "I accept very much of what the Opposition have said. I believe that we did our best, but we got some of these things wrong. I thank the Opposition for calling this most interesting and useful debate today and make a commitment that I will act without any delay whatever to put the deficiencies right."

Keith Simpson: We have had an interesting and good debate in which we have heard six Back-Bench contributions, although I am sorry that only one Government Back Bencher was able to support his Front Bench. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) is what the British Army normally refers to as an area weapon, because he is as much a danger to his own side as the other. However, he spoke with great passion and I am sure that the Secretary of State was grateful to him.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) was generous, as usual, and spoke with great authority, balance and fairness from his experiences and as a former Secretary of State. I endorse his view, although the Secretary of State intervened to correct him when he said that the Secretary of State began the debate by giving the impression of complacency. I spoke this weekend to three officers in the armed forces, two of whom had been out in Iraq and one of whom served in the first Gulf war and was responsible for sending equipment and men to Iraq. They think that Ministers will react to the National Audit Office report by saying that measures to deal with lessons learned will be implemented, but fear that although a few will be implemented, many will not. My right hon. Friend hit the nail on the head by picking out the two themes of the debate as accountability and leadership.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, effectively gave the permanent secretary a warning order of the kind of questions that the Committee will ask. He tried to be fair and balanced while pointing out the need for improvements and the fact that we must learn lessons. It is a common theme among Conservative Members that however one looks at the NAO report, it documents the fact that a series of reports over the past decade by the NAO, the Public Accounts Committee and the Defence Committee have highlighted the same lessons again and again. Some measures have been implemented to address those, but box 12 in the NAO report makes grim reading because many have not been introduced for one reason or another.
	If we have done nothing else by calling the debate, we have performed a duty by putting the Government on a warning order, not least because the Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box just before Christmas to announce his defence White Paper. He knows that the White Paper is challenging because no resources are attached to it. He talks about the need for radical changes to culture and organisation and for the introduction of new equipment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea and others were fair in asking, if we do not learn the lessons of past campaigns and implement them, what chance do the armed forces have of believing that the defence White Paper will deliver the operational and logistical systems that will be required to meet the new challenges that the Government have rightly faced up to?
	My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) spoke with great authority both about his experience in the Gulf and about reservists. I think that I have captured the spirit of his remarks in saying that if we continue with an intensive call up of reservists for low-level operations, we will eventually run out of reservists. That major challenge for the Government was also raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), who made a thoughtful and balanced contribution about logistics and the need to prepare for all eventualities. He spoke with a great sensitivity about the impact of deaths on our troops, particularly in accidents. Naturally, we are all grateful that in recent conflicts the number of casualties among our own personnel has been limited because on the whole they have been well organised and trained. They have gone in quickly, and have been fortunate to work in a coalition and deal with an enemy who, on the whole, was not capable of a serious challenge. However, we should all accept that the public are demanding that casualty avoidance should be a new principle of war. That applies not just to casualties among our troops but, ironically, to casualties on the other side and among civilians. If we accept that that has become a public requirement, it puts enormous strain on the Ministry of Defence, Ministers and the defence budget in providing the basic protection that would have amazed my father's and grandfather's generation. Indeed, in a strange way, they would probably have regarded it as rather wimpish. However, those are the stakes for which we are now playing.
	The missing 200,000 sets of body armour are no longer just a quartermaster's nightmare. When preparing to implement proposals in the defence White Paper, the Secretary of State must make certain that, as far as possible, such armour is issued not only to all our combat troops but to troops in the theatre of operations. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) rightly praised the role of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. He has experience of serving with the armed forces but, without wishing to be patronising, I must emphasise that the scheme has educated many Members on both sides of the House who lack such experience but can now speak with authority about the role of the armed forces.
	The NAO report concluded, as many hon. Members have pointed out and as the Secretary of State has been at pains to reiterate, that Operation Telic was a success overall, not least, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) said, because of the hard work, dedication and adaptability of the Defence Logistics Organisation, military and civilian personnel, and members of the defence industry, as well as the great flexibility of our armed forces, which was highlighted by a number of hon. Members. However much the Secretary of State leans on that general conclusion—and I suspect that a number of his hon. Friends back him—Opposition Members believe that glaring deficiencies highlighted in the NAO report are repeat offences, and did not arise for the first time in Operation Telic. The Opposition's main purpose in calling this debate is, following the publication of his defence White Paper, to put him on a warning order and ensure that those lessons are implemented. We must not find ourselves debating them again in a year.
	The lessons are serious. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says from a sedentary position that he is thinking of resigning. [Laughter.] [Hon. Members: "You say that."] We may have to wait two or three weeks to find out whether that is true. A number of glaring deficiencies were highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex and others, in particular the shortage of what can best be described as layered defence in terms of nuclear, biological and chemical protection.

Douglas Hogg: One way of seeing whether the Ministry of Defence was dealing with the problems would be for the Defence Committee in, say, six months to invite the Secretary of State to appear before it to answer specific questions on these matters.

Keith Simpson: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend. I am sure that the Chairman of the Defence Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, will take that into account.
	The deficiencies in protection against weapons of mass destruction, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex and others pointed out, drive a coach and horses through the Government's position. Time and again, at the Dispatch Box and in public, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the Foreign Secretary stressed that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Most of us were only too conscious, as were the men and women of our armed forces and their families, that at least on the battlefield, they could be faced with that. The National Audit Office report proves beyond all doubt that the kind of effective layered defence that we would have expected to be in place was not in place.
	As we in the Opposition have said before, the Government relied on just-in-time logistical support. The operation was short and sharp, against an enemy who, we can see in retrospect, did not amount to much. But in the defence White Paper, the Secretary of State outlined the kind of major operations that our armed forces may have to conduct over a long period against perhaps more formidable enemies. Under those circumstances, it is right and proper for us to make certain that the Secretary of State and Ministers are aware that it will be totally unacceptable if our armed forces are sent into harm's way without nuclear, biological and chemical protection and without the ability to sustain operations over a period longer than a few weeks—otherwise just in time will become just too late.
	A key condemnation in the NAO report related to the problems of the logistical chain. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan pointed out, in a semi-humorous way, all the logistical problems that can be expected over hundreds of years. We all know that nothing can ever be perfect. One of the most important conclusions in the report highlighted shortages and an apparent breakdown in the logistical chain of command. It stated:
	"This led to shortages, loss of confidence in the supply chain and inefficiency as personnel searched for items they had ordered or ordered duplicates urgently."
	Headquarters 1 (UK) Armoured Division
	"lost confidence in the ability of the logistics system to supply what they required when it was needed."
	Such a loss of confidence is pretty frightening. Ultimately, it probably did not matter, as the campaign lasted only days or weeks. The Secretary of State knows that if his White Paper's strategic vision is correct, it is likely that within the next few months or years, we will put our armed forces into harm's way, where they may face operations for a sustained and lengthy period. Such a collapse of confidence will be hopeless.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex raised a question that the National Audit Office report only touched on—the difficulty in communications. It was bad enough that the satellite link between Headquarters 1 (UK) Armoured Division and the joint headquarters broke down, but at a lower tactical level, many hon. Members will have heard reports from service personnel about problems with radio communications, which are absolutely crucial. I am not saying that the unfortunate incident involving the death of six Royal Military Police personnel could have been avoided, as they were ambushed and elements of the Parachute Regiment were some distance away, but there is no doubt that a breakdown in communications made it extremely difficult for those involved to get the sort of support that they needed. I know that these things happen in war, but unless servicemen can be reassured that their communications are robust and can sustain the sort of incoming fire that they might face in future, the morale of our troops will collapse pretty quickly.
	The Opposition believe that the armed forces carried out a magnificent operation while facing a great deal of difficulty. Some of that difficulty related to the nature of the terrain and some to working in a coalition. Of course, some difficulty also lay in the fact that some of the step orders necessary for deployment and logistics took place just in time because of circumstances beyond constraints purely to do with the United Nations. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex highlighted our suspicion that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State were having to speak to more than one audience, and there was undoubtedly concern that they did not wish to worry some elements on their own Back Benches.
	The National Audit Office report is a crucial document that highlights some telling failures in the system. The Opposition expect Ministers to implement the lessons, and we will return to them when we discuss the defence White Paper.

Adam Ingram: I thank hon. Members for their contributions. I am pleased that the House has had this opportunity to pay tribute to the exceptional achievements of our armed forces on Operation Telic. Although we are debating an analysis of a past campaign, we should not forget that our servicemen and women continue to serve with distinction today.
	The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) asked about medals in respect of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it is appropriate for me to give the best information I can. On Afghanistan, the Defence Council instruction has been published and the medal is now being issued to eligible service personnel. With regard to Iraq, the draft criteria are currently with the honours and decorations committee, and once they have been agreed, they will be passed to Her Majesty the Queen for final approval. Of course, the House will be notified about the matter in due course.
	I hesitate to respond to the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), because at the last Defence questions, in what I saw as a jokey aside—I think that everyone accepted it in that spirit—I said that when members of the armed forces addressed me, they normally called me "Sir". Everyone laughed, but that was not reflected in Hansard. The Mail on Sunday then said that the stroppy Adam Ingram, Minister for the armed forces, had insulted the hon. Gentleman. I only wish that Hansard could have recorded some of the asides. None the less, I wish to set the record straight, as I received a letter about it; I do not know whether it was from a constituent of his, but I shall reply to it to say that I had no intention of being disrespectful. Indeed, I pay sincere tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the role that he played during his service in Iraq, as I do to the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison). I am sorry that I missed the hon. Gentleman during my visit to Iraq in September. Although I do not necessarily agree with his speech, I can give him the absolute assurance that when I disappeared into my helicopter in the great cloud of dust that he described, it was not because I knew that he was coming closer and was trying to remove myself from the point of contact. Part of the purpose of visiting our forces on the front line is to hear exactly what is on their minds, and all Ministers try to have an open discussion with those with whom we come into contact. That is an important aspect of learning lessons about anything that we may ask our armed forces to do, no matter where they are.
	I welcome the interest that hon. Members have shown in the lessons that are to be drawn from Operation Telic, just as we welcome and applaud the ongoing—and very thorough—inquiry by the Select Committee on Defence that has been taking place over the past eight months or so. We look forward to the publication of its report. It was suggested that the Secretary of State should give evidence to the Committee—of course, he has done so in relation to every important subject, and is held accountable to the House through that mechanism.
	It is important to take into account the Department's own in-depth critical analysis in our report, "Operations in Iraq—Lessons for the Future". That is equally significant, although we did not hear much about it today.
	It is vital for defence and for the country that we should never fall into the trap of taking successful operations for granted. It is also important for the men and women of our armed forces to know that Parliament cherishes their services to the nation and to the world and cares deeply about their welfare and their ability to maintain the staggeringly high standards that they have set. Nor should we forget the indispensable contribution made by our civilian personnel at all levels. I therefore hope that the House will continue to concern itself closely with these matters.
	The shadow Secretary of State is usually fair-minded, but I fear that his concluding comment fell far short of the import and purpose of this debate. It would be wrong to say that it was reflected in a concerted campaign—the Tories are not good at any campaigns at the moment, never mind concerted ones—but Conservative Members went on to make repeated comments about the personal attitude and demeanour of the Secretary of State, almost as if they were trying to attribute to him an attitude that will be reported in tomorrow's papers. Of course, that attitude does not exist. My right hon. Friend made clear in his opening comments, and had to repeat to the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo), the basis upon which such reports are examined. On both occasions, he stressed that we seek a robust analysis of all the lessons learned. We are not unusual in that: previous Governments have taken the same approach. Indeed, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) noted that in 1991, under a Conservative Administration, the Public Accounts Committee made trenchant comments about certain shortcomings at that time. It is always an ongoing process. The central charge made by Opposition Members falls far short of reality, and it has failed.

Julian Lewis: The Minister says that the Opposition are not good at concerted campaigns. Why, then, have we had to put up speaker after speaker, while only one Government Back Bencher has spoken?

Adam Ingram: It is called an Opposition day debate. I spent 10 years in opposition, wishing throughout to be on the other side, either as a member of the Government or on the Back Benches, and I never want to return to the position in which the hon. Gentleman finds himself. I look forward to his continuing in the role of Opposition Back Bencher.
	Let me deal with the main propositions and views that the Opposition have presented today. Some are unsurprising because they reflect the lessons that have been captured through the exhaustive and frank review process that the Ministry conducted. However, the motion
	"deplores the fact that approximately 200,000 sets of enhanced combat body armour issued since 1989 seem to have disappeared".
	Of course, that is factually wrong. The Opposition get their motions as well as the charges against us wrong.

Keith Simpson: It is a typing error.

Adam Ingram: Okay—I simply point it out to Opposition Members in the hope that they will be more accurate in preparing their attack. They should check their facts more thoroughly.

Nicholas Soames: I apologise for the typing error in our motion but will the Minister now tell the House whether 200,000 sets have disappeared since 1999?

Adam Ingram: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State dealt with that in interventions and his earlier contribution. There is nothing further to add. I could use the same words but there is nothing new to say. If the hon. Gentleman is unhappy with the answer, doubtless he will pursue the matter. As my right hon. Friend said, we will try to get the proper answer. We have not got to the bottom of some of the background, which remains subject to investigation. That will be further considered when the PAC examines the matter.
	Let me deal with the criticisms and views that have been expressed. Some have been adduced from highly selective use of a positive, well-constructed and helpful NAO report. However, I regret that a few fell into a category that I can describe only as exhibiting a wilful determination to elude the facts.
	Let us consider the report's conclusions. When Sir John Bourn, Comptroller and Auditor General, presented the report on 11 December, he said:
	"The scale of the operation and the speed with which it was carried out are both extremely impressive. There were problems but these should be seen in the wider context of the overall success."
	The report states:
	"Operation TELIC was a significant military success."
	That has been acknowledged. It also states:
	"The huge logistic effort was successful and fundamental to the success of the operation. There were many examples of success in the way that the logistics challenge was met.
	It states:
	"Overall, UK equipment performed impressively. The Department's major equipments contributed significantly to overall military capability and the success of the operation, and were also supported effectively."
	It also says:
	"The high calibre of our armed forces personnel and the quality of their training was again demonstrated. Reservist personnel made a valuable contribution to the overall success of the operation."
	It further states:
	"The Department has a comprehensive process for identifying and capturing lessons emerging from operations and exercises, and has identified lessons that could reduce the risks associated with future operations."
	Those comments are hardly a withering condemnation that would cause Ministers and others involved in decision making to hang their heads in shame. It is thin gruel on which to mount an attack on the competence of Ministers, chiefs of staff or the Secretary of State.
	However, that is not say that there were no problems. There were problems, as there have been in every conflict, whether major, medium or small-scale, in recent decades.
	When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intervened, he quoted the following passage:
	"That is not to say that there are not deficiencies. There will always be deficiencies; there are always things that the services need to do their job better."—[Official Report, 16 October 1995; Vol. 264, c. 115.]
	Who does the House think said that? I can tell hon. Members that it was the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex. That problems exist has been recognised; what we must do is to address the deficiencies identified in the report, as the Opposition motion states. That is precisely what we are doing. If we want to maintain the outstanding capabilities of our armed forces, we must be self-critical and learn from the difficulties as well as from the successes.
	The right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea asked for an indication from me that the Government would be humble in their response to the report. I think that we are taking a humble approach to the matter.
	The hon. Member for Gainsborough said that the Public Accounts Committee, of which he is Chairman, has a role to play in these matters. We look forward to that interrogation, and to the PAC's analysis. We want to ensure that any such study displays objectivity—a word that the hon. Gentleman did not use. The PAC must not be used for party political purposes.
	The NAO has acknowledged the work that the MOD already has under way to improve performance still further. Indeed, some changes are already being implemented, such as strengthening the focus on logistic planning at MOD headquarters.
	Other lessons have no quick solution, but will form the basis of work in the MOD over the coming months. I head the end-to-end review, which is an important analysis of what is delivered on land and in the air. That intensive interrogation and analysis of our systems is aimed at determining where improvements must be made. However, our examination has led to us receiving representations from hon. Members who want us to turn our gaze away from their areas of the country. They do not want us to examine what we are doing in their constituencies, and they want to prevent us from recommending closures or change of any kind. I hear the slogan "No change!" all the time, yet the Government are subject to constant criticism for failing to address the subject of change.

Gerald Howarth: The Minister will have seen in last week's edition of The Sunday Telegraph a report about General Fulton's evidence to the Defence Select Committee on the subject of urgent operational requirements. The cost of those requirements comes to about £500 million. The minutes of the meeting have not been published, but the report suggests that much of the equipment will not be retained by our armed forces and that it will be returned. Will the Minister say what he is doing to review the matter of urgent operational requirements, which of course reflects the lack of stocks on the shelves? Is it right that much of that equipment will be sold back at a loss?

Adam Ingram: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. A balance must be struck between the amount of stocks held and the needs of urgent operational requirements. We will never get the balance perfect. That has never been achieved, but we must get as close as possible to the best solution. However, if all the necessary material had been bought in advance and yet the conflict had not taken place as a result of the intensive efforts of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to secure a resolution through the UN and not through conflict, Ministers would have been criticised in the House today for spending tens or hundreds of millions of pounds on equipment that was not needed.
	There is a fine line to walk in these matters. As the NAO report suggests, we have to find the approach that offers the best balance. That is what is important, rather than acting in haste in response to the most recent media headline.
	That said, I do not recognise the picture that some are trying to paint. The fact is that Operation Telic worked. It was a success. We should be careful not to turn that success into failure.
	We must not lose sight of the fact that this was an overwhelming success. The NAO has identified many factors behind the success in achieving our main military objectives so rapidly: our outstanding personnel; the impressive standard of the equipment that we procured; the effectiveness of equipment support; the quality of training for the armed forces; notable successes in logistics; and the speed and flexibility of our operational planning. That must always be taken into account—yes, as we learn the lessons, yes, as we seek answers, and yes, as we implement those progressively.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
	The House divided: Ayes 202, Noes 330.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Armed Forces on their outstanding contribution to the success of the Coalition campaign in Iraq and welcomes the report of the National Audit Office "Operation TELIC—United Kingdom Military Operations in Iraq", which is consistent with the main conclusions of the Ministry of Defence's own report "Operations in Iraq—Lessons for the Future".

Future of the Post Office Network

Stephen O'Brien: I beg to move,
	That this House deplores the programme to close 3,000 urban post offices because closure decisions are being made without taking adequately into account the needs of post office customers; believes that honourable Members are insufficiently consulted when proposed closures are announced; regrets the lack of time available to provide for a full consultation period and the failure of the consultation process to influence the closure programme; condemns the Government as the sole shareholder of Royal Mail plc's wholly-owned subsidiary, The Post Office Ltd., for its failure to intervene in order to rectify the way in which the Urban Reinvention Programme is being implemented; expresses its great concern about the programme to implement Post Office card accounts, which is failing to reflect the needs of customers, especially for the most vulnerable, including elderly and disabled people; calls on the Government to give a firm indication that an Exceptions Service will be introduced and to provide the House with the details of how such a system will operate after 2005; and further calls on the Government to make a statement on the sustainability of the funding of rural post offices beyond 2006.
	I was a little surprised to receive a message on my pager a moment or two ago, saying that the Secretary of State is unable to be with us today. I certainly hope that an early explanation will be given as to why she has not deigned to give her attention to this very serious issue.
	It is a stark and undeniable measure of this Government's having failed communities throughout the country that since 1997, under Labour, there have been 66 debates in Westminster on the crisis in our post office network, compared with only 15 such debates in the five years to 1997, under the previous, Conservative Administration. Indeed, as we begin this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) is beginning another on just this subject in Westminster Hall, on his constituents' behalf. Surely this Government's arrogance and disdainful complacency, as revealed by the Prime Minister's and the Secretary of State's nauseatingly self-congratulatory amendment to the motion, is proof, if any were needed, of their lack of genuine concern about the relentless post office closure programme being inflicted on almost every rural, suburban and inner-city community in the country.
	As Members know only too well, this situation is causing anxiety and sheer hassle in each constituency, particularly for the elderly, the disabled and the most vulnerable in our communities. The Government's high-handed approach to this cavalier closure programme leaves all those people sick at heart every time another post office is rushed to closure.

Oliver Heald: Does my hon. Friend agree that for all their crocodile tears, it is the Government's fault that post offices are closing, because they have deliberately reduced the footfall in post offices through their changes to the benefit system?

Stephen O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and as I hope to demonstrate as I develop my argument, he is absolutely right. Indeed, he rightly deserves his reputation for standing up for his constituents' interests at all times, not least in their communities.

Jim Knight: I, too, attempted to secure a debate in Westminster Hall on this subject. The hon. Gentleman offers a spurious statistic on the number of debates initiated on this issue by the Opposition during this Parliament compared with the number initiated before 1997. Westminster Hall debates did not exist at that time, so the comparison is, if nothing else, disingenuous.

Stephen O'Brien: To any rational person, 66 debates versus 15 is a pretty stark contrast, even without Westminster Hall. Furthermore, such a contrast is a sign of the depth of anxiety about this issue throughout the House and in each constituency. It is not simply to do with the statistical opportunities to debate.

Nicholas Soames: Does my hon. Friend agree that the discourtesy shown to the House by the Secretary of State's not turning up to respond to this debate will be deeply resented in Mid-Sussex? We did hope to be able to hold her to account for proposals that will bring grave inconvenience to many elderly people and mothers with young children. The Government have imposed appalling house-building targets on Mid-Sussex, and the proposed closure of several very valuable post offices will cause extreme inconvenience to many people.

Stephen O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He, too, is known for the tremendous work that he does on his constituents' behalf, and I can assure him that their disappointment is matched by my own, in that I am unable to debate this issue with the Secretary of State, who is responsible for supervising the Post Office.
	Let us look at the record of the post office network under Labour. I assure the House that my party and I mean no hint of criticism of the thousands of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses and all those who work diligently and tirelessly to provide a good service in our surviving post offices throughout the country. On the contrary, despite their valiant efforts, their dedication and their commitment to serve their communities and earn an honest and respected living, the Government's actions and omissions in using the genuine power and influence that they have at their disposal as the sole shareholder in Royal Mail plc, which wholly owns Post Office Ltd., to recognise the strategic community value of our post office network, remain an indictment of their record in government.

Nick Hawkins: My hon. Friend will be aware that I have campaigned to keep open post offices such as Mytchett in my constituency. I need to ensure that Post Office management and the Government are responding to the legitimate concerns raised by Members, especially on this side of the House. Does my hon. Friend agree that not only have the Government reduced the footfall by their changes to the benefit system, but they have signally failed to support individual sub-postmasters? They have been boxed in by the ridiculous and misnamed network reinvention programme. The Post Office claims that the programme operates only in urban areas, but it is hitting villages in constituencies such as mine.

Stephen O'Brien: I hope that my hon. Friend will find that my comments resonate fully with him and that he is able to report to his constituents that our feelings entirely accord with the campaign that he has run so diligently on their behalf.
	It is not my intention to undermine confidence in Britain's postal services. The post office network is a vital part of the social fabric, as all right hon. and hon. Members know. My argument is that the manner in which the Government have discharged their responsibilities for the post office network is undermining the future of that vital service. We want to hold the Government and the Secretary of State, who is not present for the debate, to account for what is happening under their watch and with their connivance.
	The network, which consists of more than 17,000 outlets, is the largest retail network in Europe. There are 45 million visits a week to UK post offices. After staggering losses, Royal Mail plc posted a marginal £3 million profit on the back of a 1p increase in the price of stamps, with another 1p increase on second class mail coming in April and proposals now in train to increase prices for size rather than for weight of posted items in future.
	Apart from some 600 Crown post offices, which are run directly by the Post Office, the rest are sub-post offices, run by private business people—sub-postmasters and mistresses. Most of them run their post office business under the same roof as another retail business. In urban areas that is often a newsagent or stationery business. In rural areas it is typically a village shop. The post office business represents essential footfall—as my hon. Friends have pointed out—cash flow and reward for those combined enterprises. Those sub-post offices and their staff play a vital role in the life of their communities. They know and understand their customers and they know how to help to support the most vulnerable by alerting neighbours to potential concerns about the welfare of others through their regular contact.
	Over recent years, however, there has been a continual decline in the number of sub-post offices operating in this country. Figures for the financial year 2000–01 show that 547 sub-post offices closed. That is the highest figure on record and it happened under Labour. Since then, closures have continued. In 2001–02, 262 post offices closed and in the most recent year for which figures are available, 2002–03, net closures totalled 345—another increase.
	The rapid escalation of sub-post office closures under this Government had become a serious political problem by April 2000, when a petition bearing the signatures of 3 million protestors was handed in to Downing street to protest against the changes announced in respect of compulsory automated credit transfer. The sheer scale of that protest reflected, and continues to reflect, the importance of sub-post offices in their communities, especially in rural areas and suburban communities that depend on them. To throw a claimed £2 billion at the issue and to preside over stamp price inflation to produce none the less the continuing demise of sub-post offices is a matter of great concern to all in the House. Ensuring that that valuable service is adequately maintained needs to become a priority for the Government.
	There are currently 9,000 urban post offices in the UK but the number has been falling steadily in recent years. There were 106 urban post office closures in 2000–01; 68 in 2001–02; and 230 in 2002–03—including 102 under what is known as the urban post office reinvention programme, which stemmed from a report published in June 2000 by the performance and innovation unit. That report suggested that local knowledge and consultation should help decide which offices should be protected from closure.

Gregory Barker: Consultation in my constituency has proved to be an utter sham. Despite our taking up closures with Allan Leighton and his staff, the responses that my constituents and I received were standard letters—none of which addressed specific points that we tried to get across to the Post Office, which often included inaccuracies in its assessments. Is my hon. Friend aware of a single case in which local consultation has resulted in the reprieve of a post office?

Stephen O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall pose that very question during the course of my speech. My hon. Friend quite rightly pre-empted me but I shall look forward to reinforcing his point.

Tim Loughton: The headquarters of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters is in my constituency, but not even that has saved nine urban sub-offices there which are to close. The Post Office's response to the representations made in respect of one office even spelled its name wrongly and the bus times given in relation to alternative post offices were for buses that do not exist. Does my hon. Friend agree—given that out of more than 1,000 proposed closures only four sub-offices will be reprieved—that the consultation exercise is an absolute sham and an insult to right hon. and hon. Members?

Stephen O'Brien: I am grateful for that further example of how the exercise appears to be consultation only in name, not in practice. We are most grateful also to the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters and its general secretary, Colin Baker, for all the assistance and information that they continue to give us in highlighting that scandal.

Peter Bottomley: We ought to acknowledge that Post Office consultation and decision making are about the fastest in the country. In West Worthing, seven sub-offices were up for consultation that ended on 23 December. Decisions were published on 8 January. So while other people were wondering what to do with their time over Christmas and the new year, the Post Office was deciding to close offices. One out of those seven offices has been given a temporary reprieve. I hope that my hon. Friend will invite the Minister to make sure that that becomes permanent, so that the Pier post office in Bath place is saved and does not go—unlike those in South Ferring, Rustington and other parts of Worthing.

Stephen O'Brien: I assure my hon. Friend that the Minister will have plenty of opportunities to give such assurances and we all look forward to hearing them. I am somewhat surprised that the consultation process was that short. I have an example from Stoke-on-Trent where the period allowed extended to 20 January from a similar starting point, which seems more generous.
	The report also suggested that financial assistance from central Government or local authorities might be needed to support uneconomic offices in deprived urban areas. The programme was formally announced in April 2002 and there was a debate in the House on 15 October, to give consent to a £210 million compensation package for the necessary restructuring. The programme is aimed at ensuring that 95 per cent of the population in urban areas live within one mile of a post office, while closing one third of the 9,000 offices. That programme began in November 2002 and by the end of June 2003, 351 post offices had been closed. Post Office Ltd has announced that by December, it intends to close 3,000 of the 9,000 urban branches. Right hon. and hon. Members will be alarmed to learn that to achieve that objective, Post Office Ltd will have to impose at least 140 closures a month—some say 250 a month—throughout this calendar year. That is not alarmist, it is alarming.
	Sadly, the effect of the accelerated rate of post office closures on the overall strategic incoherence of the programme, as well as on the credibility of the consultation process, cannot be overstated.
	Let us consider the one-mile test—not a difficult concept, surely? But the number of examples is legion where one mile, in order to pass the test under the closure programme, is measured as the crow flies, thus apparently satisfying the Post Office. However, as people cannot fly, that is not the actual distance between where they live and their local community post office; they have to negotiate walking routes, bridges over roads, railways, canals and so forth. Even if we were to accept the knowledge of Post Office Ltd. rather than that of local people on that point, and I do not, in the evidence hearings of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry on 4 June 2003—I am glad to see that the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) is in the Chamber—my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) rightly pressed that the distance from where people work be measured, too.
	Mr. David Miller, chief operating officer of Post Office Counters, said:
	"I think that is fair comment and one of the things that we are doing at the moment is reviewing how we are going to conduct the programme. I think that, in the initial stages, we have tended to look at individual offices but, much more now, we are going to look at areas and to get a proper integrated view. So I think you will see as we go forward over the next few months a wider range in terms of where we are looking and we will look at all the things you have talked about. It is very early days."
	We have seen little evidence of change, however. The combined frustration of the whole programme is that its flaws are compounded by the consultation time being short and the fact that the process is apparently not genuine.
	As my party's spokesman in South Dorset, Ed Matts, has so ably highlighted on behalf of all the people in Weymouth who are faced, despite their support for Mr Matts's tireless campaign on their behalf, with seven closures at Southhill, Lanehouse, Kings Street, Lennox Street, Radipole Spa, Westham and Wyke, the basis of selection is flawed and the consultation process is both truncated and a sham. I have given notice to the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) that I would be referring to his constituency.
	On 26 August 2003, the Post Office proposed closing its branch at 69–71 City way, Rochester, Kent and began to consult the affected community. Again, I have given notice of this point to the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). Two months later, the Post Office distributed a final leaflet confirming that the branch would close on 25 November 2003. That leaflet was marked "Printed March 2003" As my party's spokesman in Medway, Mark Reckless, has rightly said:
	"How can we have any trust in the consultation if that's the sort of game they're playing?"
	I have another example close to my own area in Chester. The hon. Member for City of Chester (Ms Russell) has said on the record that she shares the concerns of Chester city councillors—as I do; I represent a large swathe of the Chester city council area. However, she does not think that the three proposed closures of Cliveden Road, Kingsway and Green Lane post offices
	"represent any kind of sensible rationalisation",
	as they
	"are all sited in local shopping centres and act as focal points for the local community".
	She has highlighted the flaws in the process: those three branches
	"have been singled out for closure"
	because
	"all have sub-postmasters and sub-post mistresses who are willing to close down their businesses and accept the compensation package on offer.
	I really find it hard to believe that these three particular post offices are the least profitable in Chester. Unfortunately, the Post Office is not willing to make the financial information available, on the grounds of commercial confidentiality/data protection, to support their arguments for closure."
	I agree, and hope that the hon. Lady will take the opportunity to support our motion and not troop through the Government Lobby. I look forward to seeing her in the Opposition Lobby later.

John Bercow: I am sure that all Members on the Opposition Benches look forward to welcoming Ed Matts and Mark Reckless as the Members for South Dorset and Medway respectively after the next general election. In the interim, can my hon. Friend tell the House what assessment he has made of the number of elderly people, of those who suffer from disabilities and of those who lack access to private transport who will be grievously affected as a result of the mass closure programme presided over by the current Administration?

Stephen O'Brien: I look forward to dealing with that point and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it, not least because the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) has tabled an early-day motion to highlight the problem. I shall consider it shortly.
	We should also consider Stoke-on-Trent where a report in the local paper, The Sentinel, only last Saturday, was coupled with a picture of the hon. Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Charlotte Atkins) receiving a petition to save Rookery post office in Kidsgrove. The hon. Lady and I spoke earlier today and she is in the House today. Her neighbours, the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley), for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) and for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson)—I have indirectly or directly given notice to all of them—have vowed to continue their campaign to keep open 21 city post offices threatened by closure, following a heated meeting with the local Post Office boss. In all four constituencies the consultation period started on 10 December and finishes on 20 January, conveniently coinciding with the Christmas and new year break to minimize the effective time for marshalling local opinion to influence—vainly no doubt—the consultation. I look forward to seeing those hon. Members demonstrating their concern as much in Westminster as in their local press, by supporting our motion today and not throwing a comfort blanket over the Government by voting for the Secretary of State's amendment.
	The so-called consultation exercise is truly an exercise in window-dressing. I hope that, when the Secretary of State gets up to speak, she will give a precise answer—[Interruption.] I realise that the right hon. Lady cannot do that now, so the Minister will have to do it. That shows the danger of having written a speech; I was reading and got carried away. I thought the Secretary of State might have been excited enough by the subject to discharge her responsibility, but I hope that when the Minister speaks on her behalf, he will be able to give precise answers to my questions. How many closure proposals under the urban reinvention programme have been reversed following the so-called consultation—the very point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow)?
	I wonder whether the Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry—the hon. Member for Ochil, who is here—has received a satisfactory answer to his Committee's perfectly valid and important recommendation at paragraph 94 of its report on post offices, published in July last year:
	"We commend Post Office Ltd's assurance that it will make decisions about the future of individual post offices by reference to strategies for communities and areas rather than in isolation from each other. We urge that decisions are not made in a way which pre-empts a review of the procedure which relates the proposal for closure against a 'best fit' model, and that the Post Office makes its model publicly available".
	Has it? Has the Secretary of State required the Post Office to do just that? Let us hear an answer today. Yet again, it is plain that the Government have a duty, as sole shareholder—let alone given the crying need on behalf of all affected local communities—to intervene to arrest the consequences of that flawed process and that apology of a consultation exercise. I hope that the Minister will now step in and get a grip on the process.
	Owing to the vastly accelerated rate of closures, the consultation process has become confirmed as a rubber-stamping public relations exercise rather than a genuine dialogue to influence selection that involves the wider community. That decision-making process is not genuinely shared with the affected communities, as it was purported to be by the Government, and as is contemplated in the performance and innovation unit report.
	Given the pressure to complete the closures in such a drastically reduced time scale, it is hardly surprising that there is no time for consultation involving hon. Members and customers at the strategic stage. Instead, the new area plans now being developed, rather than those produced on the previous even more haphazard case-by-case basis, are drawn up by the Post Office in consultation only with sub-postmasters and mistresses. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) mentioned in an Adjournment debate on 11 December last year, MPs and customers are excluded from the process and are consulted only once the plans have been drawn up.
	It is clear that post office closures are determined not by their overall profitability or strategic importance but according to which sub-postmasters or mistresses are prepared to close down their business or, most commonly, are the first to put up their hands to accept the compensation offer. Given that the reinvention programme was intended to introduce coherence into the restructuring of the urban post office network, that random approach is unacceptable.

Nigel Waterson: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Post Office claims that the area plan system is an improvement on piecemeal closures, but that the truth, certainly in my area, is that other sub-postmasters would like to have been offered the same packages and that there is no guarantee whatever that other post offices will not close in due course, even after the area plans have been implemented?

Stephen O'Brien: My hon. Friend is entirely right, not least because of the sharp reduction in income that many post offices will suffer as the new card accounts and proposed banking arrangements take hold. That is a very serious concern.
	The Government must take this opportunity to commit themselves today to using their position to insist on a strategic approach focused on future customer service and convenience, particularly for the most vulnerable. Those people depend on the network, geographically as well as socially, as a fundamental part of the community, and we all wish to see them have the access that they deserve.
	Furthermore, the whole process of closures has created enormous uncertainty, and it falls to the Government to account for that, not because the Opposition propose a motion to hold them to account, but because that uncertainty is truly undermining confidence in Britain's postal services.
	Postcomm reports that some sub-postmasters have told it that they do not see why they should invest in their post offices when it is not clear what their future levels of business will be. That brings me on to another area of great anxiety: the introduction of the new system for the direct payment of benefits, which has had a serious impact on the profitability and sustainability of local post offices.
	In August 2000, the then Secretary of State for Social Security set out the Government's plan to move to automated credit transfer for benefit payments from April 2003. That change affects 14 million people who previously collected such benefits in cash from their post office. As of September 2003, nearly a third of customers who had responded to being contacted had chosen the Post Office card account, despite the fact that the application process and the Government's information campaign were designed to ensure that as few people as possible chose that account. Indeed, the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters says:
	"It is very clear that the Government prefers people to access their benefit payments through a bank account than via the Post Office Card Account. Government publicity makes this evident, and ministers have confirmed this on many occasions."
	Internal memos from the Department for Work and Pensions reveal that customers are intentionally steered toward other forms of direct payment because of the excessive cost of the Post Office card account. That is in stark contrast to the Government's promise to
	"be even-handed, open and honest, and . . . promote all kinds of account".

Owen Paterson: My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. In August, I drove 150 miles around my constituency and visited 28 post offices. Postmasters told me again and again that the system is deliberately made as complicated as possible to discourage customers from taking up the card. I held a meeting with the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services about the matter—he is busy talking to the Chairman of the Trade and Industry Committee—and I have also spoken to the Minister for Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond). The Government are in complete denial. The National Federation of Sub-Postmasters says that 22 steps are required before people receive a card, but the Government insist that there are only three. It is quite obvious that they do not want customers to take up cards and are thus making the process as difficult as possible.

Stephen O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting that fact. He is my neighbouring Member of Parliament and I know from first-hand experience how assiduous he is on behalf of all his constituents. He is concerned not least about the combined pressure on his constituents' lives caused by the Government's total disregard for the interests of those who need to access post office services coupled with their relentless attack on motorists from rural communities who need to connect with services. The same situation is true in my constituency because our areas share many characteristics, such as sparse rural villages. I am grateful to him for his continuing campaign.
	Most significantly, there is widespread concern that vulnerable pensioners and disabled people will not be able to use the new electronic card and personal identification number system. The PIN pad has been poorly designed, which means that disabled and blind people will have problems accessing their money. The Government have failed to explain how people who cannot use the new system will receive their money.
	In response to those concerns, the Conservative party called a special debate in the Chamber on 11 June 2003 to highlight how the Government's drive was failing to meet the needs of customers, especially the most vulnerable. The motion that was debated had previously been supported by nearly 400 Members from all parties. However, after the Government ordered all Labour Members to vote the motion down, it was defeated by 314 votes to 187. One hundred and twenty-eight of the 175 Labour Members who had supported the motion prior to the debate actually voted against it. Such breathtaking double standards do nothing to inspire the confidence of those threatened by the changes throughout the country, especially those Labour Members' constituents.
	Furthermore, if the Government agree, as they claim, that there is a need for an exceptions service for the often vulnerable people who cannot cope with their new direct payment options, will the Minister today at last commit to that and spell out details of how such a service will operate after 2005? Early-day motion 375, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Gordon and which my party and I support, calls for such action.
	In addition to customers' concerns about the introduction of the system, we are equally concerned about the impact that the switch to ACT will have on the post office network itself.

Jim Knight: I understand that the hon. Gentleman has three children and that he will thus be in receipt of child benefit. Has he, like me, opted to open a card account at his local post office to ensure that he supports it?

Stephen O'Brien: If I am being completely honest, I have no idea, because that matter is dealt with entirely by my wife. It is far better for the wife to be able to access the money because she takes prime responsibility for ensuring that the children are fed and clothed. My wife is proud of the fact that she is a full-time working mother.
	Before the automated credit transfer system was introduced, benefit payments accounted for about 40 per cent. of a post office's business, so the switch to ACT will lead to a considerable loss of revenue. Indeed, the Royal Mail has estimated that the move to ACT could reduce revenues across the post office network by as much as £400 million per year. However, that is only part of the danger. Sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses depend, as we have said, on footfall generated by people collecting benefits to create a market for selling other goods such as groceries or stationery. Much of that business will be lost. Consequently, I share Postcomm's concern that
	"the reduction in income to Post Office Ltd from the Department for Work and Pensions as direct payment is introduced, and general trends towards decrease in use of post offices and neighbourhood shops, are together bound to have an effect on customer numbers and on the economic viability of post offices".

Nigel Evans: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Stephen O'Brien: I shall, but I am conscious that as a result of accepting interventions I have spoken for longer than planned. I hope to conclude shortly.

Nigel Evans: My hon. Friend mentioned other products sold by post offices. Does he accept that they need footfall to make a profit on items on which they make a gain of only 4 or 5 per cent.? Unless they achieve a certain turnover they will not get the cash income that they need.

Stephen O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, not least because he is one of those unusual Members of Parliament with genuine business experience. It is rarely understood by Ministers making decisions on behalf of business people, whatever the size of their business, that the trade-off between volume and price is critical in the case of commodity products. A substantial volume must be shifted if people are to stock them at all and give customers a choice.
	The National Federation of Sub-Postmasters commissioned the independent research company MORI to undertake a detailed comparison of sub-postmaster income before and after the introduction of direct payment. Will the Minister give an undertaking that the Government will act in the light of MORI's findings?
	Rural post offices are supposedly protected, yet over the past two years nearly 80 per cent. of all closures have been in rural areas. All of us who represent rural areas know the immensely valuable role that those post offices play in the lives of their communities. Closures are therefore of primary concern to rural areas. In response to a consultation document by Postcomm on the preservation of the rural post office network, the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters concluded that some funding should be channelled to help sub-postmasters and sub-postmistress buy their post offices and receive sufficient income, good working conditions and adequate support. It also suggested that if those conditions are not met, sub-postmasters and mistresses would continue to leave, suitable replacements would become increasingly hard to find and many more rural post offices would close.
	The Government announced a £450 million aid package on 2 December 2002, but the NFSP is concerned that none of that money will go directly to sub-postmasters and mistresses, even though many rural sub-post offices are barely viable. If a rural network is to develop modern sustainable services, post offices need to do more than simply struggle to survive, but we do not know whether funds will be available after 2006 to protect them. I urge the Minister to clarify the Government's intentions. Will there be funding for the rural postal network after 2006, and can he tell hon. Members on both sides of this House how the Government plan to sustain the rural post office network in the long term?
	The post office network must adapt to accommodate changes in 21st-century lifestyles and consumer practices. It remains fundamentally the case, however, that the local post office plays a vital role in contributing to the social cohesion of localities small and large, rural and urban. The rushed and scattergun nature of the closures so far under the urban reinvention programme and the lack of guarantees to protect rural post offices in future are detrimental to the community in general, and are particularly damaging for its more vulnerable members—the elderly, the disabled and people on benefit. In that context, it is not the restructuring itself but the manner in which it is taking place that has given cause for complaint and created desperate anxiety about the Government's hurried and arbitrary approach.
	In conclusion, while celebrating and paying tribute to the tireless service and dedication of sub-postmasters, sub-postmistresses and everyone who works on the front line in communities up and down the country in what survives of the post office network, I urge the Government to think again and for once avoid the knee-jerk reaction of amending our motion just because it was tabled by Her Majesty's Opposition.
	Now is the time for the Secretary of State, and her Minister who will be replying today, to listen to the people in our communities who want the Government to heed what we and hon. Members in all parts of the House are saying on behalf of all our constituents, and for once to accept criticism and act. That is what will have to happen if the Minister and his Secretary of State are to have any hope of not going down in political history as the Ministers who presided over a record number of closures of the nation's community post offices on their watch, decimating the service and causing endless inconvenience and distress to people throughout the country, urban, suburban and rural alike, particularly the most vulnerable in those communities. Clearly, that reveals the true meaning of the words in Labour's 2001 manifesto, which says that Labour is
	"committed to . . . a dynamic Post Office"—
	clearly, a dynamic in the wrong, negative direction.
	I urge my colleagues, the Liberal Democrats and all other parties to join me in the Lobby. In particular, I invite Labour Members to put their vote this evening where their assorted early-day motions, petitions, photo-opportunities and crocodile tear-drenched press releases in their constituencies are, and support our fair and reasonable motion, rejecting the Government's self-serving congratulatory amendment. I commend the motion to the House, especially to Labour Members, who have more than two hours and 20 minutes to reflect carefully how to vote tonight.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I have to inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Stephen Timms: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"congratulates the Government for its commitment to modernise and invest in the national network of post offices while keeping them easily accessible to all customers; notes that the choice of account for customers into which they wish their benefits paid is entirely a matter for the customer concerned and congratulates the Government on ensuring that all the necessary information is available to customers to make an informed choice; applauds the Government's £2 billion investment in the Post Office network and its success in reducing the rate of rural post office closures; notes the Post Office's commitment to ensuring that 95 per cent. of the urban population live within a mile of a post office, and the majority within half a mile, and that honourable Members are consulted on proposed closures as part of an agreed process between the Post Office and Postwatch; further notes that 3,500 post offices closed under the previous administration; and condemns those who seek to undermine confidence in Britain's postal services."
	As the Minister for Postal Services, which is the reason that I am responding to the debate, I echo some of the points the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) made right at the end of his speech, and affirm how much importance I attach to the network of local post offices as a focal point for their communities in urban areas as well as in rural areas, particularly for those who are elderly and less mobile.
	The starting point for the policy that we have adopted for the post office network is the performance and innovation unit 2000 report, which was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman and was widely welcomed in the House, not just on the Government Benches, as squaring up honestly to the big challenges that the post office network faces, having been utterly neglected by the previous Government. The report made 24 recommendations, all of which we accepted for the future.

Malcolm Bruce: I am slightly surprised that the Minister explained his presence at the Dispatch Box in terms of the fact that he is Minister for Postal Services. I have no disrespect for that job or his role, but surely this is such an important subject that one would expect the Secretary of State to be present. Is there no good reason for her not being here, other than the fact that she has delegated to the Minister?

Stephen Timms: I am the Minister responsible for policy on the postal services. That is why I am responding, entirely appropriately, to the debate. It certainly is an important issue, and one that the Secretary of State and I are closely engaged in. I notice, by the way, that the Conservative party does not have a member of the shadow Cabinet present for trade and industry business at all now. There is some puzzlement among my colleagues about that. However, it is quite appropriate that I am the Minister responding to the debate.

Stephen O'Brien: Having known the Minister since our university days, I have come to respect the fact that he is a genuinely intelligent person, so I am surprised at his comments. With a shadow Chancellor and shadow Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, we are showing in opposition how joined-up Government is possible for the whole of business and economic affairs. That is how we organise our team.

Hon. Members: Where is he?

Stephen Timms: Indeed. I should be delighted if the shadow Secretary of State for Economic Affairs were present, but he is not. Given that the hon. Member for Eddisbury queried the absence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, it is appropriate to draw attention to the fact that his right hon. Friend is not present. It is also a mystery to the director general of the CBI, who had a rather embarrassing exchange with the leader of the Conservative party on that very point.
	Let us return to the matter in hand. The PIU report pointed out, rightly, that our network of post offices has not kept pace with the changing needs of its customers, that too often in all our constituencies post offices have become rather dingy, particularly through a chronic lack of investment under the previous Government, and that the organisation had not taken advantage of its highly trusted status as a provider of financial services. It was losing business. It faces an enormous challenge. In the last financial year, Post Office Ltd., which is the part of the organisation dealing with the network, lost £194 million. The year before, it lost £163 million, and it has reported a loss of £91 million for this first half-year. With declining profitability in the network as a whole, the ability of sub-postmasters to sell on their businesses—the way in which sub-postmasters have been able to move on in the past—has also taken a severe knock. Decisive action is needed to ensure that we maintain a sustainable countrywide network for the future. That is the reason for our action.

Llew Smith: My constituency has some of the lowest incomes, highest unemployment levels, worst health problems and highest disability levels in the country, as well as poor public transport, a low level of private car ownership and an ageing population. My constituents are just the type of people who depend on their post office. The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Wales have criticised the consultation process that is taking place in respect of the closures in Blaenau Gwent and have argued that our case to withdraw the closure programme there is unanswerable. Does the Minister support them in that?

Stephen Timms: I am aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has made some remarks on that process and I understand that the Post Office is responding. As I shall describe in a moment, there are features of the process that the Post Office has introduced that reflect the particular needs of disadvantaged areas such as those that my hon. Friend and I represent.
	The network has been contracting since the 1960s. The previous Government presided over 3,500 post office closures—a statistic that was strangely absent from the speech of the hon. Member for Eddisbury—in rural and urban areas. There have been reductions in post office usage for all sorts of reasons, and the complete absence of investment in the Post Office on the part of the previous Government was very significant. However, there have also been other reasons. Dramatic improvements in technology, greater mobility and changes in shopping and financial habits all mean that people have simply not been using the post office as they used to, and custom has been sharply reduced.

Lembit �pik: Does the Minister not accept that many of the changes that he has mentioned are not appropriate to describe what has been happening in rural areas? Rural life has remained much the same. Rural people depend very much on post offices, but they see that service disappearing for reasons entirely outside their control.

Stephen Timms: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is not the case that life in rural areas is not changing. There have been changes during the past 20 years. For example, car usage has increased and people have become more willing to travel further to the shops in the past couple of decades. Those changes and many others have had a direct impact on the post office network.

Jim Knight: I support those comments about changes in rural life. My constituency has a very high level of second home ownership, and in some rural communities, 50 per cent. of the population does not live in the local area much of the time. That has contributed to the closure of rural services such as post offices. I welcome the Government's commitment to keeping those services opensaving post offices on Portland, for examplewhile some in Weymouth are closing, as the hon. Member for Eddisbury has described.

Stephen Timms: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the importance that we have attached to maintaining rural post offices. I shall mention our action on that issue in a moment.
	I need to draw the House's attention to a couple of facts. Before the switch to making benefit payments by direct credit started last year, more than 50 per cent. of benefit recipients were already receiving their cash directly into their bank accounts rather than by order books, compared with only 26 per cent. in 1996. In that short period, the proportion had doubled. Some 62 per cent. of all new child benefit recipients and 59 per cent. of all new pensioners already received their benefits directly into their bank accounts before any of the changes of the past eight or nine months. There are far fewer recipients of jobseeker's allowance now than in the past. All those changes pose big challenges to the post office network, which must be addressed, not ducked.

Roger Williams: Does the Minister agree that many problems arise in relation to the definition of what is an urban and what is a rural post office? For example, many of the old mining communities, which have been defined as urban although they are rural villages, need the support and help that rural post offices are promised.

Stephen Timms: There has been some controversy on that point. Under the Post Office's definition, a contiguous population of more than 10,000 should be classed as urban, while one of fewer than 10,000 should be classed as rural, and that has been applied consistently throughout the network. I am aware that it has given rise to concern in some areas, but it is right to have a clear definition.

Patsy Calton: rose

Stephen Timms: I need to make a little more progress before I give way again.
	In recent research, Postcomm pointed out that people in other countries, too, are increasingly accessing services electronically over the telephone or even through the internet. Most countries have been remodelling their post office networks, usually by closing the smallest or least profitable offices, converting directly run offices to agency offices, or relocating or opening new urban offices to take account of changes in urban population and customer flows. In Germany, the number of post offices was reduced from 30,000 to 13,000a much more drastic change than is contemplated hereand other countries have embarked on a similar process. In the UK, other networks, such as those of the banks, have also been scaled back. Like them, the post office network needs to adapt, in both rural and urban areas, to changes in people's preferences and to new ways of doing business.

David Hamilton: Does my hon. Friend agree with the early-day motion tabled by a Scottish Member that condemns the three main Scottish banksthe Royal Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale bank and the Bank of Scotlandfor not co-operating with the Post Office to allow such facilities to be put in place? They are trying to bring people into their own banks, which militates against people in rural post offices.

Stephen Timms: I would welcome additional banks opening up their accounts to Post Office access, as have Lloyds TSB, Barclays, and Alliance and Leicester, and I am aware that the banks with much the biggest market share in Scotland are not in that group. I would welcome such changesindeed, I have had discussions with one of those banks. I hope that their customers will demand that they should have the same opportunity as those of the other banks in being able to access their account at their local post office. I look forward to the day, which I think is not far off, when the post office will be the best place to do one's bankingto get cash, pay bills and do the other things for which people currently have to go to the bankbecause, in many urban and rural areas, the post office is the best located place in which to do so.

David Drew: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not helpful to shut down the post office savings account, given that we need to maximise people's saving opportunities? Would it not be a good idea to link the continuation of the post office savings account to the opening up of post office card accounts instead of closing it to new recipients, which sets a dreadfully bad example?

Stephen Timms: As my hon. Friend will know, the Post Office has announced a joint venture with the Bank of Ireland to offer a whole range of new financial services products precisely in order to increase the amount of financial services business, including savings, that goes across post office counters. I believe that those products will prove attractive to many of our constituents and that they will enable them to deal with financial matters at their local post office, which is what many of them wish to do.

Nigel Waterson: Will the Minister give way?

Stephen Timms: I need to make a little headway.
	One of the recommendations of the performance and innovation unit's report was that if the Post Office decided that fewer offices were needed in some urban areas, the Government should consider providing funding to compensate affected sub-postmasters adequately for the loss of their business. Those men and women have worked hard, as the hon. Member for Eddisbury said, and it is right that they should be treated fairly even though the current level of business cannot support a post office network as dense as that of the past.
	In November 2002, following parliamentary approval of the funding, Post Office Ltd. began its urban network reinvention programme. It was a dense network. Before the process began, more than 1,000 urban sub-post offices had more than 10 other branches within a mile. There is no longer enough business to sustain such a dense network in urban areas. Sub-postmasters have found it increasingly difficult to earn a reasonable income; too many have simply shut up shop and left. We therefore need the rationalisation that is under way. Without it, there would be unmanaged decline as many sub-postmasters shut down and leave. That would lead to unplanned big gaps in the network. The current programme can avoid that.

Tim Loughton: By reinvention, the Minister means between a rock a hard place. Some postmasters or postmistresses have worked all their lives and now approach retirement. A choice between taking a compensation package now and getting at least something out of italthough the Government took away retirement tax reliefand holding on for a few more years, because they want to keep the post office open, but without a compensation package if, through declining business, they then wish to shut the post office, is no choice. They are being bullied and blackmailed to take the money and run, whether they want to or not.

Stephen Timms: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. The compensation payments are broadly based on what a sub-postmaster might have expected if the business had been sold two or three years ago, before the recent changes. They have been negotiated with the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters and based on long-standing views of the value of a business. It is appropriate for somebody who shuts down a business to contribute to establishing a network that is sustainable in the long term to receive a fair amount in compensation. The arrangements provide for that. Of course, if people stay in the network, as many sub-postmasters will, we can look forward to those businesses having a much more buoyant value in the future because of the reductions in the urban network. That is why the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters has been so supportive of the exercise.

Gerald Kaufman: Does my hon. Friend agree that popular support for a local post office is an important factor that should be taken into account? Will he pay tribute to the campaign by Levenshulme branch Labour party in my constituency to keep open the Albert Road post office? It has obtained 3,000 signatures. Will he draw the attention of the chief operating officer of the Post Office to those local wishes and the determination to keep the post office?

Stephen Timms: I agree that local support for a post office branch is an important factor. I am happy to congratulate the members of the branch Labour party that my right hon. Friend mentioned on their demonstration of that support. I shall be glad to ensure that the information is passed on.
	It is right for hon. Members to engage in the process, draw attention to especially valuable post offices that should be retained and perhaps suggest others that should be closed instead so that the exercise can be completed successfully.

Several hon. Members: rose

Stephen Timms: I shall give way shortly.
	The key to the exercise is that the largest possible number of customers from each closing branch should remain Post Office customers and move to branches nearby. The initial planning assumption was that perhaps 80 per cent. of customers from closing branches would do that. However, many more transfer to other branches. That is excellent news for the Post Office. It is important, however, that the right decisions are made about identifying the urban branches that should close.

Mark Fisher: Does the Minister understand that although the strategy that he describes may exist in his head, it is not happening in practice? The Post Office is inviting sub-postmasters to apply for the scheme, but in Stoke-on-Trentand, I suspect, many more areaspeople accept the invitations but neither propose nor oppose closures. There is no plan; the process is led by the applications. There is no strategy and therefore a great deal of what the Minister says falls by the wayside.

Stephen Timms: I am aware of that criticism but I can assure my hon. Friend that it is untrue. Initially, 3,500 sub-postmasters expressed an interest in leaving the network under the programme, but something like 1,000 of those will not be doing so: 500 have been told already that their branches cannot close, and another 500 will be told the same thing.

Several hon. Members: rose

Stephen Timms: I need to make a little more progress before I give way again, but then I shall do so gladly.
	Initially, closure proposals under the programme were focused on single offices known to be most at risk of closure because of poor viability. The aim was to minimise the possibility of damaging and unco-ordinated closures. It was in part in response to feedback from hon. Members and others that the Post Office moved, in September last year, to producing its proposals area by area, using each parliamentary constituency as the basis.
	The House will acknowledge that a plan that tells us the ultimate shape of an area's urban network at the end of the process helps to provide a clear view of the level and configuration of provision that will be in place at the end of the programme. It also helps to put in context discussions about each individual post office.
	The plan also helps to give sub-postmasters confidence about their prospects, as they know where they are going. Moreover, it helps to guard against unplanned closures, and it has also made a significant contribution to reducing uncertainty. Under the programme the aim is to complete all the public consultation by December this year, somewhat earlier than was originally intended.

Sally Keeble: Three sub-post offices are earmarked for closure in my constituency, and one of them serves the most disadvantaged community in the area. People feel real anger and concern about the proposals, and oppose them massively. They are angry about the way that post offices have been identified for closure, and about the consultation process. One sub-postmaster in my constituency was told even before the consultation process had ended that the decision had been taken and that closure would go ahead. Finally, people are angry at the Post Office's failure to think about providing proper services as it embarks on its reinvention programme. That has caused real distress for many people, among them those who are most disadvantaged.

Stephen Timms: If my hon. Friend were to tell the Post Office that, in her view, a particular post office should not be closed, but that she knew of another office for which closure would be appropriate, then I would hope that the Post Office would be open to engaging in a discussion with her.
	I want to speak about the consultation process, as the very important role played by Postwatch has not yet been mentioned. Postwatch is consulted on every proposal, and it monitors the programme as a whole. After discussions with Postwatch about how to take forward consultation on the new area plans, it was agreed that the consultation period should be extended to six weeks. In addition, Postwatch is to receive two weeks' notice of closure proposals.
	A question was asked about how many changes there have been as a result of the consultation exercise. I can tell the House that, by the end of December, there had been just over 1,400 closure proposals in the programme notified to Postwatch. Of those, 46 were withdrawn or delayed for more detailed consideration as a result of the advanced processunder which Postwatch considers proposals in advance of the public consultation. A further 66 proposals were withdrawn or delayed for reworking as a result of the public consultation.
	Those withdrawals therefore account for more than 100 of the 1,400 closure proposals. I think that there have been about 650 closures so far. That shows that there has been a significant degree of change as a result of the consultation process, and it is quite right that there should be. However, I am concerned that the process must be effective. I am very keen to know from hon. Members about any difficulties that may arise. When a particular post office is the cause for concern, the key is that the view of Postwatch should be taken very seriously indeed by Post Office Ltd.

Simon Hughes: The Minister will know, both as the Minister with responsibility for post offices and as a London MP, that we are five months through the 11-month consultation process across the whole of Greater London. It started with a letter from the regional head of external relations that said that about half of the urban post offices were not profitable. Can the hon. Gentleman indicate what percentage of the current London post office network it will be acceptable to close? Is one of the criteria that a post office is not profitable? If that is the case, about 50 per cent. of our post offices, in his borough and mine, are scheduled for closure.

Stephen Timms: The hon. Gentleman will know from the plans that have been published in London that the proportion suggested for closure is significantly less than his estimate. I do not have the figure, and at this stage we do not know precisely what the final number will be, nationally, in London, or in any region. I am confident, however, that as a result of this process we will end up with a viable network, which will continue to serve every part of London, as well as the whole country. That would not be the case if we simply allowed post offices to carry on declining.
	An important additional element of the programme is the 30 million that we have provided for modernising and adapting the post offices that remain in operation. The key to improving those offices will be the increased volume of business that they can expect, especially given the high levels of migration that I have mentioned and the grants of up to 10,000 for each office that expects to take on a significant number of additional customersin some circumstances, grants of 20,000 will be availableto be matched by the same sum from the proprietor. Those grants will be an important boost.
	It is worth pointing out that that is the first ever programme of Government investment in urban sub-post offices; in the past they have never spent money on those offices, and that investment is an additional measure on top of those recommended in the PIU report. That is a clear instance of us addressing past chronic under-investment, which has led to so many post offices becoming unattractive places to visit, particularly in urban areas, and it reflects the importance of making the post offices of the future far more attractive.

Several hon. Members: rose

Stephen Timms: Given the time, I need to make a little more progress. I will gladly give way in a few minutes, if I can.
	I want to say a little about the arrangements in deprived areas. We have required Post Office Ltd. to ensure that, after the programme, 95 per cent. of the urban population will still be within a mile of their nearest post office. In addition, we have asked the company to make sure that, other than in exceptional circumstances, its proposals do not include closure of offices within the most disadvantaged 10 per cent. of urban wards where there is no other post office within half a mile. In accordance with another of the recommendations in the performance and innovation unit report, we have made available support for post offices at risk of closure in the most disadvantaged areas.
	What we are doing in urban areas will allow us to make the transition to a successful urban network that can meet the needs of our constituents in the future and be commercially viable. The network of post offices serving rural communities is also vital to maintaining local access to essential services, particularly for vulnerable groups. As recommended by the PIU report, we have already asked Post Office Ltd. to maintain the rural network and to prevent avoidable closures, in the first instance, to 2006. Post Office Ltd. has underpinned its commitment to achieving that aim by appointing 31 rural transfer advisers around the country who often become closely involved with community efforts to reopen or save rural post offices. They have had considerable success in finding alternative sub-postmasters to replace those who have left, in locating suitable replacement premises where necessary, and in giving encouragement to community efforts to provide post office services. The House and rural communities up and down the country owe those individuals a great debt of gratitude for their success in preventing otherwise inevitable rural post office closures, and in identifying new people to run sub-post offices when the old personnel wanted to leave.

Joan Walley: Can my hon. Friend tell us the difference between the closure of a rural post office that will disadvantage many people, and that of a post office in a deprived inner-city area? Rural areas often contain former mining communities, and the devastation caused to people who cannot afford the transport costs involved will be just as great. Can we look again at the definition of urban areas?

Stephen Timms: As I have said, the scheme includes arrangements for the most disadvantaged 10 per cent. of urban areas, because we recognise the importance of post offices in those communities. If distances of more than half a mile are involved, closures should not occur.

Liz Blackman: I have written to Postwatch because I am unhappy about the consultation process in my constituency. I fully accept many of my hon. Friend's arguments about the need for change, but what discussions has he had with Postwatch about consultation, and what major themes of concern has it raised with him?

Stephen Timms: I am in regular contact with Postwatch about that. We have given it substantial extra resources to ensure that it can do a thorough job. I consider effective consultation on all the proposals to be vital to the success of the exercise as a whole.
	It has been settled that when Postwatch and the local post office management disagree on a proposal and the disagreement escalates and reaches higher levels in both organisations, there will if necessary be discussions between the chairman of Postwatch and David Mills, who runs Post Office Ltd. So far Postwatch has told me that it is happy with the way in which the arrangements are operating, but I want to keep an eye on that because, as I have said, I think it is key to the success of the whole exercise.

Several hon. Members: rose

Stephen Timms: I want to say a little more about rural post offices, because the hon. Member for Eddisbury mentioned them a number of times. What we have done has had a significant impact. There were 115 net closures of rural post offices in the financial year 200203, compared with 194 in the previous year. That is the smallest number of rural closures since 199495, and it reflects the effectiveness of our measures to prevent avoidable closures. Our funding package for the rural network more than meets the PIU's recommendations. We are making a major investment in the network, and providing additional funds for the piloting of new ways of delivering services in rural areas.
	We are investing substantial sums to support the transformation of the entire post office networka total of some 2 billion. We have established a strong management team at the Post Office, and have given it the task of turning the business around. It is continuing, crucially, to develop and introduce new products and services to build a commercially successful network for the future. There has been half a billion pounds of Government support for what has proved to be one of the UK's biggest information technology products, resulting in the computerisation of every post office in the country. That means that the Post Office can continue to pay benefits and pensions in cash, but it also gives the Post Office a vital opportunity to widen its customer base by increasing its offer of banking products and providing access to bank current accounts at local post offices.
	At the heart of the problems of the post office network is the fact that in the past it has been locked into a shrinking customer base. Now its task is to go on servicing those customers well, but also to attract new customers. It needs access to expanding banking markets, not just to dwindling markets as in the past. I mentioned the recent announcement of a joint venture with the Bank of England to provide a range of financial products. The Post Office already provides electronic access to their accounts for all holders of current accounts with Lloyds TSB, Barclays and the TSB, and I hope that other banks will be involved before too long. Access is now possible to basic accounts with every major high street bank and building society at every post office in the country, and a major advertising campaign for travel insurance and bureau de change services is also helping to make customers want to use post offices.

Michael Weir: I was interested to hear what the Minister had to say about financial services. He will be aware that none of the major Scottish banks is offering such services. Will he join others in the House in calling for the major Scottish banks to join in, which could be very useful for rural post offices?

Stephen Timms: The hon. Gentleman may have been absent when that point was dealt with earlier.

Andrew Dismore: May I take my hon. Friend back to his definition of a deprived area? Being a London MP, as I am, he will know of pockets of deprivation that are smaller than those he mentioned, but none the less areas of extreme deprivation. In that context, can he look into the closure of Grahame Park post office in my constituency? Grahame Park serves the most deprived part of my constituency where many people are on benefit, many have disabilities and there are many lone parents. There is a day centre that caters particularly for people with disabilities. Public transport links are poor and car ownership is low. At the same time, the estate is about to be regenerated and there will be a significant increase in the population over the next few years. It seems completely daft to close the post office when there is no alternative facility nearby and it is a deprived area. Something should be done about it.

Stephen Timms: I am sure that my hon. Friend will make that case to the Post Office and to Postwatch, which would both be interested and keen to hear his views.
	A couple of years ago, many people were seriously concerned about financial inclusion, and I believe that that is still a major issue in the present discussion. I therefore particularly welcome the recognition made in a recent citizens advice publication on financial inclusion:
	The Government, the banking industry and the Post Office should be commended for the progress they have made in establishing universal banking services. The ambition to enable all people to own the most basic and financial servicesa bank accountis one we share.
	That is absolutely right, and the recent changes have taken us many vital steps forward.

Brian Jenkins: rose

Stephen Timms: I shall give way one last time, to my hon. Friend.

Brian Jenkins: The Minister must be aware that in my constituency, the two most vulnerable areas are having their post offices shut. What causes us most concern is the fact that in the south-east of Tamworth, all the post offices are proposed for closure. The new proposed post office does not accord with the Minister's criterion of the majority of the local population living within half a mile of it. In fact, just 20 per cent. are within half a mile. Is that the majority? We have had a commitment from the Post Office and the Minister saying that the majority of the population will live within a certain distance of post offices. Is that a commitment, a guarantee, a wish, or is it merely a platitude?

Stephen Timms: The commitment is that, nationally, 95 per cent. of the urban population will be within a mile of their post officemost within half a mile. That will certainly be the consequence of the programme that applies to the country. My hon. Friend has written to me about particular issues in Tamworth. I know that my officials have been in discussion with the Post Office about them, and I am sure that my hon. Friend has been in discussion with the Post Office and Postwatch as well.

Mark Francois: rose

Stephen Timms: I shall not give way again.
	The Post Office faces a wide range of challenges in making sure that the network can remain viable and sustainable. I share the concern of hon. Members about ensuring the network's future. We need to ensure that it can prosper on the basis of today's and future needs, not those of 20 or 30 years ago. That is where our policies are leading, and I commend them to the House.

Malcolm Bruce: I commend the Minister for his brave defence of the Government's policies and I acknowledge that he is a thoughtful, intelligent and assiduous Minister, but he must know that he is in a big hole and that his Secretary of State has abandoned him in it. The explanation that she is not here because he is here is totally inadequate. The Post Office is, after all, the only significant business that the Government still own, and the right hon. Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt) is the Secretary of State responsible for it. The fact that she is not here is reprehensible, and I hope that she will take note that the House is less than pleased about her absence.

Mark Francois: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the House last debated these issues on 11 December 2003. That was also a heated debate. Today's Minister was not present then, and deputising for him was the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe). Hon. Members raised important constituency points that night, and that Minister undertook to respond to our points in writing. Most of us are still waiting for those letters, myself included. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if Ministers agree to write to Members, they should keep their word, or does he think that the letters are lost in the post?

Malcolm Bruce: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Department of Trade and Industry is strugglingit has only 10,000 civil servants, so obviously it does not have the staff. [Hon. Members: One for each post office.] So farand falling. The figures will probably cross over in about six months.
	The Government maintain that they are investing 2 billion in the post office network, but I would like clarification of at least some of that figure. The reality is that it includes, for example, 450 million over three years for maintaining the rural post office network. We recognise and welcome that investment, but the idea was that that would happen while a solution was created to the problem of providing income for those post offices. If we have not done that at the end of three years, such money will be not an investment but simply a maintained expenditure, which will not change the situation at all.
	Of course, we are also using such money to pay postmasters and postmistresses to leave the Post Office. And according to the Library, approximately 800 million is not specified at all, and is believed to be debt write-off and dividends forgone. Most of us do not really regard that as real money. It certainly does not constitute investmentit simply covers the losses. Indeed, if 2 billion were really being invested in the post office network in this short period, the Government ought to be commended, and we would expect as a result a super-modern, efficient and streamlined Post Office with a dynamic range of services, run by confident people with high morale. This debate clearly shows that no one except the Minister believes that that is the outcome we are currently heading for.
	We all acknowledge that change is necessary, and indeed, it was taking place. No one denies that the process of transferring payments to bank accounts, for example, which was ongoing and undertaken out of choice, would have led to a decline in income for post offices. But the point is that the Department for Work and Pensions has accelerated that process, thereby creating a problem for the DTI. It has been wrestling to find solutions, but so far it has come up with no convincing answers. The small but significantand by no means cheapexperiment of Your Guide enjoyed fairly widespread support, but it has been abandoned, presumably because the Government are not prepared to make the investment. On the one hand the Government claim to be investing, but when such an opportunity presents itself, the resources needed to make the project work are not available. In that climate, it is hardly surprising that when those who run sub-post offices are given the chance, they are taking the money and running, especially as it is better than the figure they could realise on the market.
	A high proportion of closures are taking place in rural areas, even though the policy there is not to close. In fact, the situation in such areas is almost worse. Although income is guaranteed, people can see business dwindling week by week, and they can envisage that in three years' time, income will stop and the business will have no value. So when somebody wants to retire, it is almost impossible to tempt a member of the community to take over the service. I can quote constituency examples, as can all other Members. A post office at Pitcapleit serves my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith)with more than 100 customers closed two years ago. The Post Office said that it was more than happy for it to continue, but two years later it said that the premises were unsuitable, despite the fact that a local shop offered to take it over. It subsequently said that it could find nobody else to run it. That post office still has not reopened.
	In respect of the one town in my constituency that qualifies for urban renewal, it was a case of, Hands up who wants to close their post office? Here's the money: go. Of course, the other two post offices were very happy to vote for that, because the business was shared among them. That is part of the problem.

Nigel Evans: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that what the Minister said on this issue is totally unrealistic? He said that if a post office in our constituency is under threat and we want to save it, we must choose another post office to close instead. That would be like being a judge at a good-looking baby contest, where the MP has to choose the good-looking baby, thereby disappointing the many others. It is just not credible.

Malcolm Bruce: The hon. Gentleman is of course right. The Minister is saying, Please join me in my dirty work and share the blame.
	I have some sympathy for the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), who could not answer the question about child benefit payments to his own household. I assure hon. Members that my wife was the firstand as far as I know onlyperson to register for a card account at the local post office. The evidence shows that the connection between the availability of a post office and the choice of where to collect child benefit has been lost on many child benefit claimants. Mothers I have spoken to say that payment through bank accounts is more convenient and that they were asked for their bank details, so they supplied them. When it is pointed out to them that the consequence of opting for that form of payment means that post offices are unable to provide other services, because of the loss of income, many say that they would have preferred to retain payment through the post office. The original letter to child benefit claimants simply invited them to provide their bank account details and gave no indication that any other option existed.

Adrian Flook: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Malcolm Bruce: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I would like to make progress because several other hon. Members wish to speak.
	The spokesman for the Conservatives and some Back Benchers have articulated examples of the management of closures. Just before Christmas, my party's candidate for Mid-Sussex contacted me to say that she had chaired public meetings in the constituency to campaign against a proposed closure. She was told that the final date for closure was 23 December, with confirmation to come early in the new year, and the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) referred to those problems earlier in the debate. It is a disgraceful way to treat people who are trying to obtain the views of the public. The Post Office's effective message is, We are not interested. It is offensive that PostwatchI mean no sweeping criticism of that organisationis given advance information on closure proposals in confidence, on condition that it does not disclose the details to anybody, especially elected representatives of the public. There is no justification for a consumer watchdog having an advantage over elected representatives.
	The failure to consult local authorities in their capacity as planning authorities means that possible future patterns of trade, which could be relevant to closure, are not taken into consideration. That is a failure to use the resources that are available.

Sarah Teather: Will my hon. Friend join me in condemning the nature of the consultation in my constituency? Despite a vigorous campaign to save the Brondesbury and Gladstone Parade post offices, they both closed in the summer. I found it extraordinary and outrageous that hundreds of signatures on petitions of protest were recorded as one objection. When we asked the general area manager what we would have to do to change his mind about a closure, he said that he had complete confidence in the decision-making process and it would be difficult to change his mind. What a sham.

Malcolm Bruce: As my hon. Friend points out, it does not matter whether there is one objection or a thousand, because no one will take any notice of them anyway. It is nonsense to suggest that a genuine process of consultation occurs.
	Given the Minister's dealings with the Post Office, I wish to make a serious point about its middle management staff, who treat their power as a means to patronise Members of Parliament and representatives of the public. The attitude of middle management is that they have the power and nothing we do or say will change that because our views are irrelevant. That is an outrageous attitude for a public service. On many other occasions, we fight on behalf of the management to try to secure a future for the business. It should recognise that we need a partnership, not an arrogant dismissal of the legitimate role of Members of Parliament.
	I have received representations from our candidates for Mid-Sussex, Newcastle, Essex and Leeds, all complaining about the same problems as have been articulated here tonight. Under the urban renewal programme, the Government have put up 30 million for reinvestment for those post offices that have been retained in the network. However, it has already been proved that post offices are closed, not according to the needs of the community but on the basis of self-selection by postmasters and mistresses, and nobody can blame them for that.
	In addition, theoretically there is money available for offices that are continuing within the network, to improve their premises to meet growing business. I am told that scheme is supposed to be completed in three months. So far, of the 30 million made available, less than 1 million has been taken up. That is hardly surprising. If one is in the middle of an extremely controversial process where morale is low, one would be unwilling to put up 50 per cent of the money to secure the other 50 per cent of match funding to invest in one's business before having the chance to establish what the new pattern of business was likely to be in the future.
	Will the Minister explain the time scale? Should it not be extended? Does he recognise that if less than 1 million of the 30 million has been drawn down, reinvention in the sense of investment in the remaining network is empty and meaningless?
	Where will the new business for post offices come from, given that Your Guide has been rejected. There is clearly demand by many Government agencies to use the Post Office network to distribute information, forms and so onfor which service those agencies presumably pay, yet there seems to be no suggestion that arrangement should be reviewed and reconsidered. If there is to be reinvention, presumably it ought to be possible for additional post offices to be registered for vehicle licensing, passport applications and so on. Instead, one tends to find that the whole deal is rigid and restricted. The Post Office has a network but buyers have no idea what it isand individual changes are almost impossible. When a Member of Parliament is approached by a post office that wants to issue vehicle licence, driving licence or passport forms, there is no mechanism by which such requests can be processed. That should be part and parcel of a genuine review of the future role of the Post Office.

Alan Beith: In the town of Berwick the Post Office was unable to maintain its former Crown office, which has been closed for many months. Anyone who wants to obtain a vehicle motor licence must either go to Scotland or to a post office 16 miles away in England. Does that not indicate that even in an area in which the Post Office is supposed to be maintaining traditional central offices, it is not doing so?

Malcolm Bruce: My right hon. Friend has anticipated my next point. The role of the Crown office has become extremely unclear. When the large number of Crown offices that used to exist were effectively privatised or abolished by the previous Government some 10 years ago, it was said that that would make no difference to services. The right hon. Gentleman confirms that the loss of a Crown office means the loss of a service.
	The town of Keith in my constituency has a population of 4,000 or 5,000, so it is comparable to several others in the area. For historical reasons, Keith has never had a Crown office so the office there is not allowed to issue passport formseven though it is owned by a postmaster with another post office that has the capacity to do that work. That kind of bureaucratic nonsense does not address the needs of the community but is a historical hangover. It is one reason why many of us are less than convinced that the proposals really are a reinvention or renewal but believe that they represent systematic closure, rationalisation and a rundown of the service. While the focus currently is on urban post offices, we are waiting for the money to run out for rural offices and for the roof to fall in on them.
	Progress with the card account is also unclear. The figures that are regularly published tell us that so far, 7 million of the 30 million accounts have been approached. Of the 7.25 million account holders who have been invited to convert, 2.25 million have not even replied. One third of those who did reply said, Take a running jump or applied for a card account. In other words, they were not interested. The future requirements of millions of people and their implications are unknown to the Government and the Post Office. That is particularly true of child benefit.

Stephen Timms: The hon. Gentleman makes a number of thoughtful points, but I want to clarify that applying for a Post Office card account does not amount to saying Take a running jump. It is an entirely proper outcome of the process. Something like 2 million people have so far indicated their preference. That is their right and that is what they will get.

Malcolm Bruce: I am slightly rebuked by the Minister. Of course, we are keen for people to take out card accounts. The fact that sufficient numbers have struggled through the system to get an account is welcome. Perhaps the 2.25 million who have not replied are, in effect, telling the Government to take a running jump.

Adrian Flook: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a pensioner in Winsford, a village in my Taunton constituency, who has a bank account tried to get a post office card account? After considerable effort, the pensioner obtained an account number but it turned out to be a dummy. The Post Office had no intention of giving her a card account because she already had a bank account.

Malcolm Bruce: I am of course well informed about the situation in Taunton. I certainly understand the hon. Gentleman's point; every Member could give a similar example. Every time we debate this subject, the Minister must be aware how much anger and frustration there is on both sides of the House. If he does not tell the Secretary of State that there is a problemas she did not have the courtesy to attend the debatehe will not be doing his job. There is a problem and the Government had better realise it, or they will find out about the consequences in a painful way.
	The exceptions service has already been mentioned, and I have tabled an early-day motion about it. A significant number of people are likely to be affectedthe Government estimate that it could be 3 million. For various reasons, some short-term and some long-term, those people will be unable to use any of the techniques currently on offer. They may not be able to make use of a card account, as they cannot cope with pin numbers, or they may not have a bank account. They may be ill for a couple of weeks or there may be a long-term problem. At present, they can sign their book and hand it over at the post office, or they can ask a proxyan agentto do that for them and bring them the money.
	Under the new arrangements, we do not know what people will do. When we pressed the Government, we were given suggestions such as, They will be given a cheque, but those people need cash so a cheque is not really the answer. It has even been suggested that they could receive cash from the Department for Work and Pensions by special courier. I have a vision of special couriers touring the country, trying to deliver cash to people in remote rural areas, to ensure that they are not excluded from the system. I suspect that it will cost substantially more than 400 million or 500 million a year to do that.
	Another suggestion is that people would be given a special payment form that they or their agent could take to the post office to receive cash. It is even proposed that for convenience, so that a new form does not have to be issued each week, people could be given several forms stapled together to make a little book[Laughter.] People could then take the book to the post office. Does that sound familiar? If that were to happen, several million other people would say, What about us, why should we miss out? That may be why several million people have cottoned on to the fact that the best thing to do when they receive letters from the DWP is not to reply and to keep the Government guessing until they come up with an answer.
	Almost everything that matters in this situation is unknown. We still do not know how many people will apply for a card account or for payment by direct debit through the bank, or indeed how many people will not apply. We do not know how much the DWP will save through the new operation, especially as we know neither the mechanism for the exceptions service nor its cost. We do not know what the loss to sub-post offices will be, so we do not know how much business they can win back or from where; the scale of business that they need to find to cover the gap is unknown.
	The Government are hell-bent on taking the process to a conclusion by a defined date, although almost every significant variable is unknown and they do not know what the outcome of any of the major parameters will be. The Government are heading for a serious fall. I suggest that until our questions are clearly answered, they should listen to Members, slow down the consultation process and recognise that the communities affected have a right to be consulted. The Government must explain the real long-term future for the Post Office, not merely the outcome of their current closure programme.

Mark Fisher: I am grateful to the House for the opportunity to contribute briefly.
	The Minister is right to say that post office closures have been taking place for 15 years. Moreover, probably for the 20 years that I have been a Member, there has been a process of slow erosion. So, in many ways, a major programme should be welcome in that it would allow for planning and coherence, instead of the drip, drip that we have had for the past 20 years. The Minister has been listening to the debate and looking at his postbag, so he must understand thatwhatever his brief says and whatever Postwatch and the Post Office tell himthere is no strategy in practice. There is no coherence. If there were a strategy, the Post Office would look at each community, and its needs, scale and geography would be considered and an assessment made about how many post offices were needed to serve that community. That is not taking place, and it is no good the Minister closing his ears to that.
	I had had a very unpleasant and heated meeting with the regional management in my constituency last Friday, and it is clear that all that they have done is wait and see. They have put out the notice saying, Please apply for closure, and have accepted every application that has come in. They have not varied that at all. They have had no view of their own. They have not varied; they have not opposed. They have simply taken whatever has been offered to them, because that is the cheapest and easiest way to meet their targetsdread words for this Government and most other Governments, but there it is.
	There has been no strategy whatever, and the result in my constituency is not a closure programme; it is butchery. There are 21 closures in the city of Stoke-on-Trent and seven in my constituency, most of them down one side of the constituency, where two and half large wards, with more than 20,000 people, are now left without a single post office. That is not a planned, strategic closure programme; it is a complete cop-out and a waste, and it is destroying the services that should be there.

Michael Weir: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but are not things slightly worse than he says? The Post Office is giving the impression that there is a planned programme. Did he, like me, receive a letter from the Post Office saying that it will now consider constituencies as a whole? The original letter said that the Post Office would look at my constituency in the spring of this yearthat was in November last yearbut two weeks later, I received a letter saying that one of the post offices in a borough in my area would close. The Post Office told me one thing one week and the complete opposite two weeks later. There is no strategy, just as the hon. Gentleman says.

Mark Fisher: The hon. Gentleman is extremely lucky; he has been consulted by the Post Office. Most of us have not been consulted at all. If there is no strategy, there is virtually no consultation. The shadow Minister tried to suggest in opening the debate that Stoke-on-Trent was being favoured by having a six-week closure consultation programme. Almost all that time was over the Christmas period, so we effectively had about 12 working days.
	In the past 20 years, hon. Members have had a great deal of experience of library and primary school closures, as well as of the closure of chemists and other local facilities. We are eroding our communities, and what we are doing with this closure programme is a continuation of that. We ought to understand what we are doing. It may make commercial sense, but it makes absolutely no social or community sense. That ought to be considered if we are to have public services.
	The Minister should understand that there is no consultation at all. It is simply not taking place. We have all had experience of closures, but when a closure programme involves a local school, we have proper consultation, not 12 days. We have public meetings, and the local education authority and Ministers, if the issue goes to them, listen to and are lobbied by those putting the community case. None of that is happening.
	I suggested that the regional management should hold meetings in my constituency. If the regional management believe that they have a good case for closing post offices, they should put it to the public. When I put it to them that they should do so, they just laughed. They thought it was a ludicrous idea. They said, There is no time for that, but there is no enormous time pressure; we have to get this right. The Post Office and the Government will not get it right unless they first have a strategy, and secondly, listen to the people who will be affected. At the moment, there is no strategy or consultation and, as a result, there is a great deal of anger on all sides about the incoherent butchering of the service. We are seeing the end of the service as such, which will have an effect on communities. If the Minister is serious when he says that he wants an effective process, will he undertake, even at this late stage, to examine the individual cases that hon. Members of all parties have put to him?

Lindsay Hoyle: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mark Fisher: I am about to conclude, because many other hon. Members wish to speak.
	Will the Minister recognise that the position on the ground is such that there is no strategy or consultation? If necessary, he could lengthen the consultation process and use the Government's position in relation to the Post Office to require it to have a coherent strategy. Such a strategy would start with assessing populations, needs and geography before planning a network, rather than simply saying, Who wants to close, because you all can?

Nigel Waterson: This is far from the first time that I have raised post office closures in Eastbourne. I have raised the matter in several debatesthe most recent debate that I secured was held on 14 October 2003and even during Prime Minister's questions. I hate to seem a little like the ghost of Christmas yet to come. However, I was one of the lucky ones whose constituency was among the very first to be blessed with the area plan procedure, so I am here to give a warning, I hope not in too ghoulish a way, of what is to come for hon. Members whose lives have not yet been touched by the process; they should know what lies in store.
	My constituency was singled out for the area plan approach in early August last year. While almost everyone was on holiday or thinking about other things, a letter suddenly arrived about post office closures. There were two separate consultation processes. One process related to three, and subsequently four, sub-post offices in my constituency, and the other proposed the closure of the Upperton Road post office, which most people in Eastbourne regard as the main post office in my constituency. We eventually persuaded the Post Office to hold both consultations together and to extend the overall consultation period. I personally asked the Post Office to send senior people to attend a public meeting in Eastbourne town hall, which took place toward the end of last year, in addition to participating in the ordinary consultation exercise.
	My perhaps naive belief, which was shared by Postwatch, was that because our area was one of the first to be involved in the process, all procedures would be followed to the letter and taken seriously by the Post Office. I could have not have been more wrong. Four sub-post officesWhitley Road, Avard Crescent, Compton Street and Church Streethave closed, and the main post office on Upperton road is due to close on 7 February.
	I pay tribute in passing to Postwatchas did the Ministerand especially to Mr. David Bland, for being extremely co-operative and helpful throughout the process. However, Postwatch has no teeth or power. It is true that the dispute was escalatedto use the jargonand that Peter Carr, the national chairman of Postwatch, personally raised the Upperton Road closure with no less a figure than Mr. David Mills, the chief executive officer of the Post Office. However, as I have explained, the post office is to close in a few weeks' time. Postwatch was so disturbed by the way in which its views were disregarded that it made more global representations to ensure consideration
	of better integrating Branch closures into Urban Reinvention Network Area Plans
	so that both sub-post offices and Crown post offices would be taken into account with as much equality as possible throughout the process.
	There is a real issue, and I have three brief observations to make from my experience. First, the Post Office is adept at ignoring even the business case for keeping a post office open. Leaks from the staff of the Upperton Road post office showed that, far from suffering the losses that were alleged, it was doing rather well. Indeed, the staff have subsequently received substantial bonuses for their efforts. It makes little sense for the Post Office to enter into a deal worth 100 million-plus for financial services with the Bank of Ireland, as we have heard, given that in Eastbourne it is shutting more than a quarter of our post offices, with the closure of five of the 19 post offices in the town.
	As I pointed out to the Minister in an intervention, there is no guarantee that the area plan system will work. It was proposed as a better alternative to piecemeal closures, but in my constituency sub-postmasters who would have liked a deal were not offered one, and their businesses, largely as a result of Government policy, are now extremely marginal and may well close in due course. There will therefore be closures under the plan, but there will also be other piecemeal closures.
	Finally, I turn to the consultation, which in retrospect I regard as flawed and entirely bogus. There was a vast expression of local opinion, in petitions, letters and e-mails and at a public meeting, all of which was disregarded by the Post Office. It was as plain as a pikestaff from its attitude in correspondence and at the public meeting that it was not interested in taking note of those strong feelings or the massive disadvantages, particularly for elderly people in my constituency, of the closures.
	I shall close by talking about two other interesting straws in the wind. I was approached by a constituent who was prepared to take on a business that the Post Office proposed to close and continue to run it as a sub-post office. The Post Office was not in the least interested in accepting his proposal. The other straw in the wind concerns the staff at the main post office on Upperton road, who were told well before the consultation that it would close on 5 February. That is now the official closure date, and they must migrate, presumably along with a lot of customers, to the other end of the town centre to another branch that is already extremely busy, overused and short of space. In a nutshell, the consultation was a travesty, and any hon. Member who faces even the suggestion of consultation should question very carefully indeed whether they are simply being led up the garden path by the Post Office.

David Clelland: When I read the motion on the Order Paper, I agreed with almost all of it, apartgiven that my regional Whip, the hon. Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp), is on the Front Benchfrom the phrase condemns the Government, which I could never do. However, I am afraid to disappoint Opposition Members, but I shall not join them in the Lobby. Although I agree with the wording of the motion, it is born of the Opposition's cynicism and opportunism. After 18 years in government, when they closed 3,500 post offices, they have the cheek to talk about breathtaking double standards and crocodile tears, as the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) put it.
	I object to the number of closures in my Tyne Bridge constituency. Under the programme, no fewer than nine of our 21 post offices are scheduled for closure, three in Newcastle and six in Gateshead. All the indicators show that my constituency is one of the most deprived in the country, and the least worthy of such a blow. I am not suggesting that the service should not be rationalised by any means. Some people are voting with their feet and have found alternative ways of collecting pensions, welfare benefits and so on. That trend will continue. More and more pensioners, for example, will choose to have their pensions paid into their bank accounts because their wages and salaries were paid in that way. I therefore accept the need for rationalisation in some instances, but the closure of nine of the 21 sub-post offices in Tyne Bridge is excessive, and does not take sufficient account of the terrain.
	The Post Office has told me that its staff walk the areas around post offices before making a decision about closure. If they did so in Tyne Bridge, they would have to be pretty fit. One post office is the aptly named Deckham Hillwhatever direction people walk in they go up and down very steep inclines indeed. The people who rely on post office services are generally elderly or infirm, or are mothers pushing prams, and will find access very difficult indeed.
	In the case of another post office, the Dun Cow, which serves the Dunston Hill area of my constituency, 1,200 local residents signed a petition against its closure. I pay tribute to the Labour councillors in the area who kept the people so well informed and gathered the names on the petition. Similarly, in Newcastle, another 1,200 people signed petitions against recently announced post office closures, which will be a devastating blow to local people and raise concerns about more closures in the future.
	It appears that not enough account is taken of future development. The Low Teams post office in my constituency is scheduled for closure on the basis that there has been some demolition in the area. However, new development is taking place to replace the demolition. New houses are being built on the riverside in the former garden festival site and around the post office itself. That does not seem to be taken into account by the Post Office. A similar argument applies to the Armstrong Road and West Benwell post offices in Newcastle, in an area known as the going for growth area of Newcastle, where substantial redevelopment is planned.

Patsy Calton: Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. I have a letter from the chief executive of the Post Office, who tells me clearly that he believes that
	extensive modelling and analysis of an area including what published plans the local authority might have for the area
	are included in the consultation process. In fact, as the hon. Gentleman knows from his experience and as I know from mine, that does not seem to be happening. Does he think that the top levels of the Post Office may not know what the intermediate levels of the Post Office are doing?

David Clelland: That may well be the case. My experience would bear that out. I do not believe that the Post Office could have investigated in the way that it says it has and come to the conclusion that it reached.
	There is a rule that sub-post offices in the most deprived areas should not be closed if there is not an alternative within half a mile. However, in the case of the Armstrong Road and West Benwell post offices, which I mentioned earlier, the Post Office argued that if both are closed at once, that rule does not apply. I have taken the matter up with the Minister, who I am pleased to say supports me. I understand that the matter will be re-examined. I had a letter from the Minister in December, in which he writes that
	there would still be four alternative offices within one mile of West Benwell and three within one mile of Armstrong Road, all with good public transport access and concessionary fares.
	Concessionary fares are just that: they are not free. People still have to pay, and concessionary fares do not apply to all those who use the post office services. Moreover, one mile is an awfully long way to walk in the terrain that I described earlier.
	The Minister told me, and he repeated today, that some postmasters are leaving the system owing to a lack of business. That may be true in some cases, but not in all. Some retirements are taking place, but in many cases, such as that of the Dun Cow post office in Dunston, there is no lack of business, with 1,200 people in the immediate vicinity asking for it to be kept open. Some postmasters are retiring, but many are being bought out by the sweeteners being offered by Post Office Ltd.
	Despite the changes that are undoubtedly taking placeI accept that changes are taking placethe sub-post offices in Tyne Bridge remain an important and necessary service for thousands of my constituents. The proposed closure of almost half the total outlets in Tyne Bridge is excessive and will cause hardship. It should be reconsidered by the Post Office, whose duty to run an efficient business should not undermine the very services that it exists to provide.

Roger Gale: The subject was last debated on the Floor of the House on 11 December, when the House considered the Trade and Industry Committee report and the Government's response to it. Replying to that debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe) said:
	A viable post office network is important to all hon. Members.[Official Report, 11 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 1288.]
	He was right. That was a two-hour debate, during which there were 21 contributions10 from Labour Members of Parliament, seven from Conservative Members, and four from minority party Members. Every single contributor to that debate was hostile to the Government and to the post office programme. So far in today's debate, every contributor on both sides of the House has been hostile. If there is an hon. Member present who is prepared to stand up and say, I support entirely what the Government and the Post Office are doing, I will willingly give way to them. However, I do not detect anyone coming forward to say that, as making such a remark would be electoral suicide in one's constituency. As the Under- Secretary rightly said, this matter is vital to every hon. Member.
	The thrust of the debate on 11 December was the availability, or lack of availability, of Post Office card accounts. The Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill), said that the Department for Work and Pensions had
	made applying for the account more difficult and complicated and has been able to load the choice system with active discouragement.[Official Report, 11 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 1259.]
	Postwatch has said:
	The Post Office Card Account application process requires the customer to retain and assimilate documents that they receive at different stages in the process. The duration between receiving these documents is often quite long. It can be confusing and is potentially off-putting.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) reminded the House in Westminster Hall on 7 January 2004 and has said again in the House this afternoon, there are 22 steps in the process of obtaining a Post Office card account. That is effectively a deliberate attempt to dissuade post office customers, including sub-post office customers and the business customers of the sub-postmasters, from obtaining Post Office card accounts.
	In replying to the 7 January debate in Westminster Hall, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond), said:
	The move to direct payment and the introduction of universal banking services has resulted in a number of benefits, including an increase in customer choice.
	He also said:
	The Government believe in choice, and in giving our customers the dignity of the financial inclusion that the rest of us enjoy.[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 7 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1078WH.]
	That is rubbish. It is what is now called, in prime ministerial parlance, a whopping great totality. My constituents, the elderly who live in Herne Bay and Margate, are not interested in what the denizens of Islington regard as inclusion. They are not queuing up for new mortgages, they do not want to do share dealing and they are not even trying to apply for passports. They want to be able to take their post office book down to the post office to get their cash and to buy the things that they want from the little shop that is attached to it. If they cannot do that, they want a Post Office card account, and they would like to get one easily, please, and because of age and probably physical capability, they do not want to have to jump through 22 hoops to do so.
	That footfall, which was mentioned earlier, is vital to these small businesses. It is not surprising that small business people, which is what sub-postmasters are, are taking the money and running, because the alternative would be bankruptcy. Businesses on which they were relying for their retirement, which they now cannot sell, would be destroyed by Government action and the post office programme.
	The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Bradford, South, said in this Chamber on 11 December:
	We want people to use post offices because they want to, not because they are forced to do so[Official Report, 11 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 1289.]
	The Government amendment to the motion before us refers to a
	commitment to modernise and invest in the national network of post offices while keeping them easily accessible to all customers
	and
	notes the Post Office's commitment to ensuring that 95 per cent. of the urban population live within a mile of a post office.
	That is a mile by a straight line, but I have news for the Minister; my constituents, particularly the elderly, do not walk in straight lines through buildings. They follow the roads. Neither do they particularly want to have to climb up hill and down dale, which is often the shortest route as measured by the Post Office, but not the most reasonable one.
	The so-called consultation process is a total charade. It is absolutely meaningless. I am sure that there is not a single Member in this Chamber who has not tried to protect a post office, and I should be very surprised if anyone had succeeded in doing so. Yes, Postwatch has stayed some executions, but, mark my words, those post offices will close. The Post Office's failure to do its homework and the lip service that the Minister pays to that is disgraceful.
	The Post Office tells me that it is possible to drive from the former Studd Hill post office in my constituency to the Sea Street sub-post officeassuming, of course, that one has a carin three minutes. Michael Schumacher could not do it in that time: it is simply unrealistic. At the other end of my constituency, the Post Office has done its homework so wellI have mentioned this in the Chamber beforethat I am told that the rail service and the underground are the alternatives to the non-existent bus. I have represented Margate for 20 years, but I have not yet found the metro stationunless the Post Office means that everybody will have to travel to London to use the post office. It is ridiculous.
	The Minister says that local people have to demonstrate local support. In my constituency, and I suspect in every constituency represented in this Chamber, people have been queuing up to demonstrate local support to try to keep open the services that they want for themselves and their families. However, the petitions and the letters from Members of Parliament and local councillors of all political persuasions are not worth the paper that they are written on. It is a charade, and the Minister should be ashamed of it.
	Sadly, it will be a little while yetpossibly until the end of this yearbefore this Government are reinvented and closed. In the meantime, post office closures are continuing. For me, the sadness is that the people who are responsible will be long gone by the time it is left to the rest of us to try to clear up the wreckage.

Iain Luke: I rise not only to speak specifically about my constituency, as many hon. Members have done, but as someone who has watched the financial troubles of the Royal Mail and Consignia, to make the point that we should remember that many of the problems that we face today date back to the 1980s and 1990s, when the Post Office was cash-strapped and the then Government, who are now in opposition, were unsure about whether to privatise it.
	I have received briefings from the Post Office locally and nationally. I have heard Allan Leightonwho changed Consignia's name back to the Royal Mail in his efforts to create what he sees as a first-class, world-class postal servicespeak about reinventing the Post Office. I accept that some sort of change is necessary. I am saddened by the tenor of the motion tabled by the Opposition, who seem to deny that there is any need for reinvention and put forward no positive response to the Government's suggestions. However, although their motion contains some negative terms, I have some sympathy with some of their arguments.
	When the consultation began, I wondered how it would work. Unfortunately, it is now evident that six weeks was too short a period, and the process seemed inflexible. In the case of three of my local post offices, the consultation process on their closure was due to finish on 6 January. As the two weeks over Christmas are dead time, I wrote to the Post Office to ask if it would be possible to extend the process for another two weeks to allow for problems with the mail. I put in that request well before Christmas and got my reply on 5 January, the day before the consultation ended. That gave me a little time to mount a representation, which I did. The inflexible and short-term nature of the process suggests that this is a done deal and that in the end the consultation will have made no difference.
	The basis of some of the decisions must be flawed. I know that from my local community and one of the post offices, which is proposed for closure and based in Barnhill in Dundee. It is centred in a vibrant and busy shopping centre but the alternative was somewhere isolated and out of the way. It has subsequently been found that the alternative post office is for sale and may close. That means that Barnhill, which is fairly populous, would be without postal services.
	A Conservative councillor has taken up the matter on behalf of constituents. I have worked with Postwatch to try to put the case. My case was that, given the presence of two large supermarkets, if the post office had to close, why not try to locate it in one of them. I believed that the Post Office would consider that in the run-up to the consultation and present that option rather than the smaller, isolated, less used post office that may close.
	The Minister made the point that some reviews have taken place. I learned something today and I was chasing it up as late as 2.30 pm before the debate. I was led to believe that, on the basis of my representations, those of Councillor Mackie, who is Conservative councillor for Barnhill, and those of Postwatch, a hold will be put on the decision until my alternative can be examined. Lack of alternatives damns many hon. Members' cases.
	The option was easy to devise because in Dundee, West, where a large Tesco is located, the same thing happened. A post office was to close in Lochee but it was successfully relocated in the Tesco superstore. However, it takes time to work out the options and it is obvious that time was at a premium in the process. Given the importance of ensuring that we have a first-class, world-class postal service, we need to take more time to consider the matter.
	I have a dilemma with the current partial successI cannot say that the process will ultimately be successful because there is a long way to go. I know from my work in writing and making phone calls to get some sort of feedback that the dilemma is mirrored throughout the country. Only four post offices are proposed for closure in my constituency. Other hon. Members have mentioned statistics such as 29 post offices. The problem in Dundee is therefore not on the same scale as those in some areas, but the services are all vital to their communities.
	I made the point to the Minister at the beginning of the process that I believed that the Government were brave to tackle the problem. We have heard Allan Leighton speak about the Post Office losing millions of pounds; something had to be done. The Minister and the Government now have to be brave and say that there needs to be time out, to use a basketball term, to tease out some matters. When good cases have been made, there should be a review. The Government should be able to tell the Post Office that there should be a review process as a backstop. Postwatch has played a role but it needs to be beefed up to ascertain whether, given more time for thought about what the process would entail, there could have been more detailed work on the economic, social and community basis for closures and for keeping post offices open.
	I want briefly to consider two further vital issues. I accept the need for exceptional services. Some people need to go to post offices to get their pensions and benefits over the counter. That should continue. I have been sufficiently lucky to ensure that several pensionersone a sprightly 94-year-oldmanaged to keep their Post Office pension books. It is not well known that the exceptional circumstances can continue. Like many people, I am worried that after 2005, they will disappear. The Government must make a commitment to continuing them.

Lindsay Hoyle: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be better if the Government made it easier for people to get the cards and keep their pension books?

Iain Luke: The system has to be simplified and publicised more widely. There has to be a commitment that it will still be all right after 2005 for pensioners and people unable to get to a bank to obtain a Post Office benefits book. That commitment should be made public as soon as possible.
	Lastly, 90 per cent. of people in Scotland use the three major Scottish banks. They have moved away from post offices because the major banks will not locate facilities there. That is one major element in ensuring that post offices in Scotland continue to be viable. I have made that point to Allan Leighton, and the Government should be pressing it home with the banks.

Archy Kirkwood: If the speech by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke) amounted to support for the Government, I think that they face some difficulty. At best, it could be described as tentative, but the hon. Gentleman did as well as he could.
	This is a very important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) on bringing this subject forward. Today's debate has come in our second week back after Christmas, but the theme will recur throughout the year. I am an officer of the all-party group on sub-post offices and we will be convening meetings in the very near future to try to keep track of events. The level of concern demonstrated by hon. Members of all parties is palpable and obvious. We need to watch this matter carefully.
	In passing, I want to commend the work of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, which keeps all of us objectively informed about what is happening in our constituencies, and about the wider issues. The federation's general secretary, Colin Baker, is a particular expert on these matters.
	I want to say a word about context of the issue. The problem has been evident for nearly a decade. I first became aware of it when I watched the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) wave a magnetic swipe card at the 1995 Conservative party conference. He claimed that it would be the answer to everything, but the project was cancelled after 800 million of taxpayers' money had been spent. That shows the extent to which policy on the matter has been mishandled, and the huge sums of money that have been spent and lost. That money will be needed in the long term to put matters right.
	The year 2002 was an important one. I was present at Westminster's central Methodist hall when a massive rally involving nearly 1,600 peopleordinary peoplewas held. Those people wanted to demonstrate their support for continuing back-up and provision for their post offices. That level of public interest and willingness to demonstrate has been maintained, as the Government will find out if they are not careful to ensure that the proposed system is better organised.
	I was delighted when, in 2000, the Cabinet Office's performance and innovation unit produced a report that I consider to be both enlightened and sensible. It provided a basis for taking matters forward, but its 24 recommendations have been more or less discarded.
	When the PIU report was published, we were talking about making available a Government general practitioner service on an electronic basis. My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) mentioned the Your Guide pilot schemes, which were discarded before they had been properly evaluated. Those pilots were an integral part of the PIU report. We were talking about all sorts of ways of generating a modern platform, and sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses across the UK were pleased with the template for the future that the report provided. They are now totally disillusioned about what has happened since the report was published. I shall return to that matter a little later in my remarks.
	The other point in terms of context is that the Government could make a potential saving, according to their estimatesI agree with the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon that those estimates are inexactof 400 million each year, every year, starting in 2003 and continuing until 2005 when the current policy is implemented properly and fully. That huge amount of money is a resource that intelligent policymakers at a strategic level would use sensibly to put in place a transition process and underpin the network, but we have seen no evidence of such investment.
	Let us bear in mind that post offices had 16 million to 17 million customers weekly in 2002 when we started looking at the issue of providing magnetic swipe cards, although the footfall of people going to post offices has started to collapse, for obvious reasons. Important issues and big amounts of money are at stake. We are dealing with domestic households that are financially disadvantaged, that work with cash week to week, that have had no experience of credit facilities, banking services and the rest, and that feel uncomfortable about the future. Clearly, even if 2 million people use the Post Office card account, there is a huge gap between 2 million and 16 million. That context needs to be recognised.
	As I said earlier, the federation is increasingly disillusioned. It was a willing partner, and was enthusiastic about the PIU report, but it has been let down. In spite of all the evidence that has come from debates such as this, from parliamentary questions, from pressure groups, consumer groups and others, it feels that its arguments have been ignored, and, for the first time, it now has real concerns for the future of the post office network. It has been a willing partner and eager to make this project work, but now there is evidence of its concern about the good faith that the Government are bringing to bear on the matter.
	Of course, the federation recognised the need for re-organisation and it, more than anyone, had an interest in making sure that that worked. It recognised that there was a need for a brighter and better network of post offices, more modern and high-tech, which offered beneficial services for customersindeed, an ever greater range of services. It accepted that some post offices would have to close, which was part of the package in the PIU report.
	The practice since 2000, however, has been different. The federation never anticipated 3,000 closuresI certainly did not anticipate thatand the programme, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) rightly said, no longer represents a strategy but a campaign of closures. Little evidence exists of bigger, brighter and more modern post offices, certainly in urban areas. The 450 million that has reputedly been put into trying to support rural post offices has never reached the local sub-post office network. Were it do so, it would merely keep an ailing network on its knees, and would not change anything in the long term. Since 2000 and the PIU report, the Government have given with one hand and taken away with the other. The remuneration for the new services being brought on-streamI subscribe to the view that the Government need to put pressure on Scottish banks in the Scottish contextdoes not make up for the money previously received from direct payment.
	The federation is astounded that the Department for Work and Pensions claims that there is an unbiased choice in the selection of the best future option for customers. As Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, I know that ample evidence exists of an active and aggressive campaign to prevent people from getting Post Office card accounts. That is a disgrace, and it should change. It should not just be a question of improving the formsthere should be a positive promotion campaign to increase take-up and access to the Post Office card account.
	The federation is not afraid of the future. With the activities of the Department for Work and Pensions to which I have just referred, the problems surrounding the network reinvention, and the reluctance of the banks to get involved, however, it is nervous and concerned.
	In his foreword to the PIU report in June 2000, the Prime Minister said he was
	confident that by working together with subpostmasters and the private sector we can deliver a network of post offices fit for the 21st century . . . a network that continues to occupy the special place it has in Britain in all our lives.
	Instead, we have been left with confusion, uncertainty and a feeling of being cut adrift.
	Like every other area, the biggest town in my constituency is experiencing a calamity. The largest post office there has just closed. It was part of Safeways in Hawick, but apparently it was notified about two years ago that the supermarket had decided it could make more money by selling baked beans than by providing a service for its customers. During that time there has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in an attempt to renegotiate the lease. Now the Post Office has decided that this is part of the reinvention programme. Consultation is in progress on the closure of the biggest, most modern and most service-rich post office in the biggest town of my constituency. Come April that will happen, and I shall be left with two branches.
	Both those branches are run well. Indeed, the one in Sandbed wins prizes, and is managed by an enthusiastic, energetic man who knows a lot about the business. But there was no plan, no strategy, and no possibility of the six-figure investment that is needed to get retail premises kitted out properly and to inspire confidence that a future income stream will repay capital. Who in his right mind would go to a bank manager and say I want to buy a couple of shops, knock them together and provide a service that is really needed by a town containing 16,000 people? No one is going to do that.
	I promise the Minister that this is the first of many debates. He will be brought back here time and again, for a Liberal Democrat if not a Conservative Supply day. He will return here, and to Westminster Hall, day after day and week after week until the penny drops and he realises that he must promote the Post Office card account and establish sensible capital investment programmes to ensure that urban networks are properly financed once the reinvention programme takes hold. He must also realise that the rural programme needs proper support; otherwise the service will dwindle, postmasters will go bankrupt and go out of business, and the people who suffer most will be our constituents.
	The Government have a duty to act, and they have no more than the next few months in which to get the programme right for the long term.

Chris Bryant: As my time is limited to two and a half minutes, I shall move swiftly to the matter in hand for my constituents, which is the Cwmparc post office. I do not know whether any Members have seen the film Very Annie Mary. In the opening scene, Jonathan Pryce goes down from the Bwlch into the beautiful Bwlch valley, sweeping past a glorious rural areaan idyll which, unfortunately, the Post Office describes as urban because, apparently, it is contiguous with a community of 10,000. It is in Treorchy ward, a large ward with three members on the local council which includes some wealthier areas. It does not count as a deprived area, although many of the houses in Cwmparc are among the poorest accommodation in Wales. It is all private accommodation, owned by former miners and their families.
	I believe that Cwmparc post office should stay open, for the simple reason that it falls between two stools. It counts as neither rural nor urban deprived. In some cases statistics do not help us, and we should make it possible for post offices to stay open.
	I am delighted that the Government established Postwatch. I was consulted from the start. It was not difficult to consult with people of Cwmparc on whether they wanted their post office to remain open: they said yes very firmly and very swiftly, within 24 hours. A petition with some 2,000 names was gathered and Postwatch supports us in wanting to keep the one post office out of 29 in the Rhondda that might be closing. I hope that in the coming months we will find that the Cwmparc post office will be staying open. If we ever reach a point at which the postmaster, who also has the post offices in Treorchy, Abergorky and Treherbert and therefore has a local monopoly, decides of his own volition that he wants to close the post office in Cwmparc, come what may, I hope that the Post Office will look closely into finding other means of ensuring that the services that the people in Cwmparc desperately need are available to them.
	Finally, what sometimes happens when a post office closes is that the post box closes as well. That can be disastrous for a local community, so I greatly hope that neither of those things will happen to the people of Cwmparc.

Michael Fabricant: Well, the Prime Minister wanted a big conversation and, boy, he certainly got that this evening. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have been highly critical of changes in the post office network, so I hope that the Prime Minister was listening. I have to say that it is a great shame that the Secretary of State was not here to listen. It is clear from the debate why she has left the poor old Minister hanging out to dry. That is obvious from the nature of the interventions that the Minister has taken from his own side. The poor Minister has had to face it now, and he will have to face it later on, too.
	Two points have been made clear by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House this evening. The post office network is an absolutely vital part of our social fabric, and it must be preserved. However, we have heard that the pattern of closures is no pattern at all. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) said to the Minister that the closure strategy might exist in his head, but was not happening on the ground. There is no closure strategy; there is no coherence. That was the very point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) in opening the debate.
	My neighbour, the hon. Member for Tamworth (Mr. Jenkins), spoke about deprivation in south-east Tamworth. He spoke about the commitment to keeping post offices in such areas open and asked the Minister whether it was a commitment or a mere platitude. We all look forward to hearing the answer to that.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) paid tribute to Postwatch, but pointed outsadly, quite rightlythat it had neither teeth, nor any powers. Perhaps the Minister will tell us this evening how he intends to give Postwatch the necessary teeth and powers. The hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) agreed with the whole motion, except for the tiny bit that condemned the Government.
	I have to say that in the whole debate today, not to mention that of 11 December, not one of all the hon. Members who have taken partnot even my old friend, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)congratulated the Government on their handling of this particular issue. That is the whole problem. The programme to close urban post offices is piecemeal, with insufficient consultation.
	The future of our rural post offices hangs in the balance and the new system for the direct payment of pensions and benefits is causing widespread difficulty to pensioners and other vulnerable people. The closure programme has been brought forward by a year to the end of December 2004, which, according to Postcomm, has resulted in a closure rate of up to 150 a month.
	The pace of that closure had led to several concerns being expressed today. There has been a lack of consultation with local communities and with MPs in drawing up plans for future local provision of post office services. Instead, plans have been drawn up in secret, with consultation only on individual closure proposals arising from the plan on a branch-by-branch basis.
	I have a letter from David Mills, the chief executive of the Post Office, in which he says:
	We walk the ground, and we talk to the subpostmasters to understand whether they can make investments in their branches.
	Well, all I can say is, You could have fooled me. Indeed, the same can be said of everyone present for this debate.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) sent me an e-mail in which he talked about the closure programme in his constituency, which is quite typical. He said that the Post Office
	were given money for the network reinvention scheme on the basis that they would have a plan for the network. It appears that they are merely spending it where sub-Post Masters want to retire, leaving for example 2 post offices within a quarter of a mile in Cowes but none in Gurnard over 1 mile from the nearest post office.
	He continues by saying that that is
	not an economic use of public money.
	I agree.
	In addition to the consultation programme, we are particularly concerned, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury has pointed out, about the impact of the new system for the direct payment of benefits: the automated credit transfer scheme, which has been heavily criticised for failing to reflect customers' needs. First, the Post Office card account application process is tortuous. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) and others have pointed out, one has to go through some 22 stages in order to obtain such an accountand it would seem to everyone that the Government's information campaign has been designed to ensure that as few people as possible choose this account. Secondly, the campaign to switch to ACT started too late and has been poorly executed. Thirdly, there is widespread concern that vulnerable pensioners and disabled people will be unable to use the electronic card and PIN system. I look forward to the results of the MORI survey mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury, which will involve a comparison of sub-postmaster income before and after the introduction of direct payment, as reported by Postcomm.
	Aside from the closure of urban post offices under the reinvention programme, we are also concerned about the rural post office network. Funds are being made available, but what will happen after 2006?
	This morning, the Prime Minister presented a radio show on LBC. When asked, his official Downing street spokesman told journalists that the Prime Minister would now consider doing weddings and bar mitzvahs, too. Somewhere in that busy schedule, I hope that he will also ponder the future of the Post Office, for yes, he has a responsibility for post offices too. As they continue to close around the country at breakneck speed, the needs of our local communities and of vulnerable people within them are not being properly met. The Government are ultimately responsible for a closure process that is running at breakneck speed, without showing due regard for the way it is being operated. Local characteristics are being ignored and local communities are not being properly consulted. There is inadequate long-term planning and a lack of a co-ordinated framework. Let us be clear: although the Post Office is a public corporation, it is the Secretary of Stateshe is not in her place todaywho appoints its board, and the Government wholly own its shares. They cannot duck responsibility for the Post Office's future, and for their oversight.
	The Minister must now answer these questions. What will the future of the 9,000 rural post offices after 2006 be? Will funding continue, or does Labour plan to abandon rural post offices after the next election? Why have the Government not intervened over the manner in which urban post offices are being closed; or, despite what the Minister has heard today, does he still believe that all is going well? What steps will he take to ensure that future closures are properly consulted on, in order to meet local needs? And when will he intervene to ensure that the direct payments system works properly? Will he change the procedure to make applications for card accounts simpler and quicker? Will he ensure that the 22-stage questionnaire is abolished? Will he insist that the PIN pad be changed to enable disabled and blind people to use it more readily? And will he meet his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensionshis ministerial colleague the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths), has strolled in and sat down on the Front Bench at the last momentto ensure that Post Office card accounts become an equally attractive alternative to bank accounts? Now is the time for the Minister to answer. Now is the time for this Government finally, perhaps, to deliver.

Oliver Heald: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In your role as guardian of the rights of Members of Parliament, can you provide your guidance on the fact that the Secretary of State has failed to attend the debate, despite the fact that the shadow Secretary of State moved the motion at the beginning? Is it right that Secretaries of State can evade accountability in that way, just as the Prime Minister refuses to say whether he will open for the Government in the debate on the Hutton report? Will you defend the rights of the House in this important matter?

Mr. Speaker: I can do many things to a Secretary of State, but I cannot compel one to come to the House in these circumstances.

Stephen Timms: With the leave of the House, I wish to reply to the debate. On the point of order, I remind the House that we did not know the subject for the debate today until last Thursday. What is striking about such debatestoday's has been no exceptionis how strongly people feel about the future of the post office network. I make no bones about the degree of difficulty inherent in deciding that future and we have rightly been reminded of that in the debate. However, we have the worthwhile objective of a viable, countrywide network of post offices that is able to prosper in today's conditions and those of tomorrow, not just stuck in the conditions of the past. That objective needs to be pursued with vigour and determination. We are doing that, but the necessity of doing so has been powerfully underscored in our debate this afternoon.
	If I may make a personal point, I recall using a post officeI suspect that many other hon. Members have similar memorieswhen I first started working, after I had concluded my studies with the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien). I used to obtain cash regularly from my local post office. Indeed, the other day I dug out my old post office book, which showed the last transaction occurring in 1983. By then, we were all in the new world of cash point machines and bank cards and I no longer needed to go to the post office for cash. However, since July, I have been able to access my bank current account with my bank card at any post office in the country. There is a post office on the high street around the corner from where I live in East Ham, so I have started to pop in on a Saturday morning to obtain some cash and to buy a newspaper. Many hon. Members have mentioned the importance of footfall and that is right, but some 20 million current accounts are now accessible through every post office in the country, thanks to the investment that we have made. That is part of developing a viable future for the post office network, without the need to try to cling on to business that is ebbing away. Instead, post offices need to win new business in an expanding market that can be the basis for a commercially successful future.

Patrick McLoughlin: Will the Minister give way?

Stephen Timms: No, I need to respond to some of the points that were made in the debate.
	The hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) made a thoughtful contribution, to which I listened with interest. He asked where the investment went: some 500 million went into the technology that has computerised every post office. That investment will provide a viable future for the network, because it will be able to offer banking and other financial services much more widely and effectively.

Oliver Heald: Where is the Secretary of State?

Stephen Timms: The hon. Gentleman was not present for the debate, but we aired that issue fully. I wish to respond to the issues raised in connection with the subject of the debate and the resolutions that are proposed.
	The hon. Member for Gordon asked about Your Guide. Interestingly, since that exercise concluded, three wholly commercial projects to provide kiosks in post offices have been developed, and they may be best placed to contribute to the future success of the Post Office. I know that the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters has been in close discussion on one of the projects.
	The hon. Gentleman raised concerns about the speed at which the 30 million is being invested. Ideally, that investment will be undertaken within three months but that is not a requirement. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, which we need to examine. I was particularly concerned by his suggestion that right hon. and hon. Members feel patronised by Post Office middle managers. That is of great concern to me and to Post Office senior management, who will have noted the hon. Gentleman's comments.
	I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) but do not agree with his characterisation of the process. There will be the opportunity next week in an Adjournment debate to examine the issues in Stoke-on-Trent. We have heard about a number of changes made as a result of the consultation process. I gave figures for sub-postmasters who indicated that they were willing to go but were told that they will not be able to go. However, I will of course listen to my hon. Friend and others, to make sure that we get it absolutely right.
	I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) that there should be effective consultation. I was pleased by the examples given by my hon. Friends the Members for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke) and for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant), and by the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley), about changes made as a result of consultation.

Patrick McLoughlin: rose

Stephen Timms: The hon. Gentleman did not participate in the debate. I want to respond to important points made in the debate by the hon. Member for Eastbourne and others.
	I have kept closely in touch with Postwatch and met Peter Carr, its chairman, not long before Christmas. He told meI summariseso far, so good, but we do need to keep a close eye on how the process develops.
	I was grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) and for Dundee, East for recognising the need for rationalisation. I completely agree that if two post offices less than half a mile apart were closed at the same time, that would get around the requirement not to shut down post offices in disadvantaged areas. Such an approach is clearly unacceptable and I know that the Post Office has taken that on board. However, I make the point that it is not possible to take through a programme of this kind without causing some inconvenience.
	The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) said that it is extremely difficult to get a Post Office card account, but 62 per cent of pensioners are requesting and getting card accounts, so the evidence on the ground is that the impossible hurdles that the hon. Gentleman described do not exist. Interestingly, much smaller proportions of those receiving incapacity benefit, jobseeker's allowance and carers' benefits have opted for Post Office card accountswhich illustrates that the Post Office has been locked into a reducing number of customers. It needs in future to attract and serve a much larger number of customersincluding many like me, who did not use post offices in the past. Thanks to the half billion pounds of investment in computerisation in particular, that is the prospect ahead.
	The contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East was helpful in many ways. I am glad that the Post Office is considering the alternatives that he proposed. He was right to note that the policy of the previous Government, of simply neglecting the Post Officeworse, using it as a cash cowis at the heart of many of the problems that the network faces.
	The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Sir Archy Kirkwood) referred to the difficulties experienced with Safeway. I am grateful to him for drawing that point to my attention. I understood that Safeway decided that it did not want to have a post office in the store, but that confusion arose because signatures for a petition against the closure of the post office were collected in the store, even though the closure was Safeway's idea.

David Maclean: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House divided: Ayes 205, Noes 326.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):
	The House divided: Ayes 322, Noes 203.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House congratulates the Government for its commitment to modernise and invest in the national network of post offices while keeping them easily accessible to all customers; notes that the choice of account for customers into which they wish their benefits paid is entirely a matter for the customer concerned and congratulates the Government on ensuring that all the necessary information is available to customers to make an informed choice; applauds the Government's 2 billion investment in the Post Office network and its success in reducing the rate of rural post office closures; notes the Post Office's commitment to ensuring that 95 per cent. of the urban population live within a mile of a post office, and the majority within half a mile, and that honourable Members are consulted on proposed closures as part of an agreed process between the Post Office and Postwatch; further notes that 3,500 post offices closed under the previous administration; and condemns those who seek to undermine confidence in Britain's postal services.

PETITION
	  
	Council Tax (Hastings and Rye)

Michael Jabez Foster: Following a 20 per cent. increase in this year's council tax bill, some 10,000 of my constituents in Hastings and Rye consider that enough is enough and have signed a petition, which I fully support, bringing attention to the need to restrict future such unaffordable rises.
	The petition states:
	The petition of Bob Harris and others
	Declares that repeated inflationary rises in council tax in Hastings, a town considered one of the most deprived in the country, have caused a great deal of misery not only to pensioners but young marrieds too.
	The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge Her Majesty's Government to take immediate steps to reduce increases in future years at least in line with inflation and incomes.
	And the petitioners remain etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

ANTI-MALARIAL TREATMENTS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Joan Ryan.]

Tony Colman: Research and development into anti-malarial treatment could be thought esoteric. However, malaria kills more than 1 million people each year, and with global warming its reach will soon cover Europe and the United Kingdom. The Select Committee on Science and Technology has just commenced a major piece of work on science and UK international development policy. At its first hearing yesterday, the Department for International Development helpfully tabled a memorandum that I used for this speech.
	In my Putney constituency is Ronald Ross primary schoolan excellent school that is doing very good work. I particularly praise the head teacher, Gillian Baker, and Mr. Fred Shaub, who has been a teacher there for 30 years and who in May 2003 won a lifetime teaching award in London. The school is named after Sir Ronald Ross, who lived in Putney and in 1896 demonstrated the life cycle of the parasite of malaria in mosquitoes. He was awarded a Nobel prize in 1902 and his groundbreaking work is still an inspiration to the children of Putney. The Ross Institute of Tropical Diseases, where he did his work, was for many years situated at the corner of West Hill and Putney heath. He discovered that the malaria disease cycle is dependent on transmission between people by mosquitoes. A single bite from an infected mosquito can lead to malaria. Following the bite, the parasite travels to the liver within 30 minutes and starts to reproduce rapidly. The process can take five to 16 days, but some parasites lie dormant in the liver and may only become active years later. The symptoms of malaria may include fever, shivering, headaches, repeated vomiting, diarrhoea, generalised convulsions, pain of the joints and backache.
	With regard to the epidemiology of malaria, approximately 40 per cent. of the world's population, mostly those living in the world's poorest countries, are at risk of the disease. High-risk areas include large parts of central and south America, Africa, the Indian sub-continent, south-east Asia, the middle east and Oceania. Worldwide, the World Health Organisation has estimated that there are between 300 million and 500 million malaria cases annually, directly causing more than 1 million deaths and contributing to a further 1.7 million. Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds, and many children who survive malaria suffer from learning impairments or brain damage. Approximately 30,000 European and north American travellers contract malaria annually. On average, for every 2,500 travellers staying in west Africa, 60 contract malaria and one person dies of the disease.
	In Africa alone, malaria represents 10 per cent. of the continent's overall disease burden. When I worked in west Africa in the 1960s, I was expected to retire at 29so ill did almost all coasters, as those who worked on the west coast of Africa were called, become. Hundreds of millions of African children and adults are chronically infected with malaria. Between 30 per cent. and 50 per cent. of in-patient admissions and 50 per cent. of out-patient visits are attributed to malaria each year. The vast majority of malaria deaths occur in Africa, south of the Sahara.
	In Africa today, malaria is understood to be both a disease of poverty and a cause of poverty. Annual economic growth in countries with high malaria transmission has historically been lower than in countries without malaria. Economists believe that malaria is responsible for a growth penalty of up to 1.3 per cent. per year in many African countries. When compounded over the years, that penalty leads to substantial differences in gross domestic productamounting to a total of $12 billion a yearbetween countries with or without malaria, and it severely restrains the economic growth of the entire region. Malaria also has a direct impact on Africa's human resources. It not only results in lost life, and lost productivity as a result of illness and premature death, but hampers children's schooling and social development through absenteeism and permanent neurological and other damage associated with severe episodes of the disease.
	This problem requires treatment, but at the moment the treatment of malaria in Africa is an unmet need. In many areas of the world, the recommended first-line therapy for oral treatment is chloroquine. Resistance to chloroquine is now common across most of sub-Saharan Africa. Sulfadoxine-pyramethamine, the commonly-used alternative to chloroquine, now does not work in the east and central areas of the continent. There is no vaccine for malaria and none is likely in the near future. That is why drugs are so important.
	I shall mention a specific success in research and development before going on to discuss the wider situation. Since 1999, GlaxoSmithKline, DFID and other partners have developed the drug, Lapdap, which will be a valuable addition to the armamentarium of anti-malarial drugs used in sub-Saharan Africa. Lapdap was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency on 6 August last yearan excellent example of public-private partnership for the benefit of the world. Perhaps the Minister can update the House on progress in the production and distribution of Lapdap.
	The new big development is the Medicines for Malaria Venture, which was created in 1999 by the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, bilateral donor Governments and leading foundations to replenish and sustain the global pipeline of new anti-malarial drugs. After four years, MMV has established more than 20 individual pharmaceutical discovery and development projects, now comprising the largest co-ordinated and managed anti-malarial research and development portfolio in history. Contractual partners in MMV's projects include 42 leading-edge research entities across the globe. In 2002, WHO described MMV as
	the premier public-private partnership for developing new malaria drugs.
	Since its inception, MMV has received pledges of more than $97 million in funding from nine philanthropic and public sector donors, conditional on performance against an agreed business plan. However, the most recent business plan for MMV predicts that an additional $80 million is needed by 2007 and if the portfolio continues to expand, even more funds will be needed. Conversely, lower funding will slow progress significantly. I pay particular tribute to the Gates Foundation, among others, which provided the largest proportion of MMV funds to date.
	Although the Governments of Switzerland, the Netherlands and, I am glad to say, the United Kingdom contributed to MMV from the outset, the resurgence of malaria requires effective engagement by other bilateral agencies from significant donor nations. Will the Minister update hon. Members about the level of support from the Department for International Development and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries to MMV?
	MMV practises virtual research and development; it funds and manages its portfolio, but academic and pharmaceutical partners, located throughout the world, conduct the physical research and development. Current examples of success are nine projects in the pre-clinical phase that create a solid basis for at least one new drug registration for 2010. Unless there are unforeseen technical difficulties, paediatric Coartem could be registered before 2007 and the next generation of artemesinin-like peroxides could be registered before 2009. Four projects are based on combination drugs and a further nine projects involve completely new therapeutic targets. They should result in drugs with no initial selected resistance to the parasite. Perhaps the Minister can provide updated information.
	Treatment costs are a major hurdle, which often inhibits prompt access to anti-malarials. MMV has therefore made developing drugs with the lowest possible intrinsic costs a priority, partly by focusing manufacture in low-cost regions such as India and China. MMV is keen for the Department for International Development to join discussions on the way forward.
	That brings me to the Department's memorandum to the Select Committee on Science on Technology yesterday. It is not specific to anti-malarial research and development and I should welcome a breakdown of the figures to show the Department's efforts in that field. Members of the Select Committee expressed anxiety that untying the Department's research and development budget disadvantaged UK research foundations. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that. Of course, I welcome the Medical Research Council-DFID concordat, with a DFID contribution of 4 million.
	I note that DFID has 474 professional staff acquiring and using science. How many specialise in research and development on anti-malarials? The Cochrane collaboration, which reviews existing research, has had success. Is DFID widening its scope to ensure that researchers are not reinventing the wheel?
	My eminent and hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), in his role as Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, is arranging meetings with DFID and MMV next week. I look forward to hearing from him and the Minister about major new initiatives.
	However, any research and development initiatives must be owned by the countries that face the scourge. Growing political commitment by African leaders to action on malaria was given a boost by the funding of the global Roll Back Malaria Partnership in 1998. Considerable progress has been made. Almost 20 African countries have reduced or eliminated taxes and tariffs on insecticide-treated nets to make them more affordable. More than half the malaria-endemic African countries, representing almost half the population at risk, have established country strategy plans to achieve the Roll Back Malaria goal and the targets that have been set.
	However, given the projected resources needed by 2010, only 20 per cent. of the necessary funds will be available locally and help is needed. Is DFID planning to help?
	The work is going forward under the MMV, but what is needed to ensure that proper levels of research and development are devoted to anti-malarials? The excellent work of Mdecins sans Frontires, Fatal Imbalance: the Crisis in Research and Development for Drugs for Neglected Diseases,makes the following recommendations for moving forward.
	First, it states that the World Health Organisation should lead the process. A critical next step is for Governments and international organisations to establish carefully how they can contribute to dislodging the bottlenecks that currently restrict the development of new treatments.
	Secondly, there is the question of legal obligations. Governments canand domandate industry spending in a wide range of areas. One example of a potential mandate would be an essential research obligation. Companies would be required to reinvest a percentage of pharmaceutical sales into research and development for neglected diseases, either directly or through public R and D.
	Thirdly, existing estimates about the costs of drug R and D vary widely, and remain highly controversial. To address the R and D imbalance effectively and make informed funding decisions, policy makers need objective and accurate figures on the true cost of developing drugs.
	Fourthly, equitable access to medicines in developing countries should be a basic principle that guides policy initiatives from the start. If public funds are to be invested in correcting market failures in drug development, there must be guarantees that the new medicines developed can be afforded by those who need them. I welcome the Minister's comments on all those recommendations.
	I started this speech by making a link with the work of Sir Ronald Ross and the Ross institute in Putney. I want to return to south-west London, as St. George's medical school is situated in Tooting, on the border of my constituency. Ross's work is continued there by Professor Sanjeev Khrishna, professor of molecular parasitology and medicine, and his colleagues. Their work on artemisinins is ground-breaking in establishing the next drugs round. I am told that we are now in the position to start anticipating how parasites will try to change to become resistant to drugs. Now that we know what to look for, this is a very exciting discovery.
	I have one last concern. Putney is one of the three constituencies forming the London borough of Wandsworth. Research by Williams and others, published in Archives of Disease in Childhood 2002, investigated all cases of childhood malaria reported at St George's hospital in Tooting. All families were interviewed, and details of the illness, and of reasons for travel, risk factors and prophylaxis, were recorded using a questionnaire.
	Between 1975 and 1999, 249 children were diagnosed as having malaria. Only 41 per cent. of the children resident in the UK had taken anti-malarials and, worryingly, the overall number of symptomatic children taking no prophylaxis has increased over the past 25 years. The researchers stated:
	It is our experience that families
	that originate from endemic areas
	regard their children as being 'immune' to malaria, despite them being brought up in the UK. The increasing number of cases remains of great concern.
	St George's hospital in Tootingthat is, just one hospital in the UKnow deals with about 100 cases of malaria a year, some of which are severe. Thus there is a worrying trend, as the research conducted over a 25-year period shows. Yet anti- malarial drugs are not paid for by the NHS. They are therefore not free at time of need to my constituents.
	All too often, travellers to malaria-endemic areas take either the cheapest drugs, or none at all. They are also not as aware as they should be of the dangers. The net result is that NHS costs go up, with more cases each year that are expensive to treat. Surely not providing anti-malarials on the NHS is in the end a false economy? At the very least, a cost-benefit analysis should be done.
	I believe that early diagnosis is the key. There is a need to raise awareness among the following groups of people. The first group comprises travellers, both as individuals and as travel-industry consumers. Airlines are getting better at promoting the issues, but I suspect that the travel industry in general is shy of pushing the issue, as to do so might put people off travelling to and taking holidays in malaria-endemic areas.
	The second group among whom awareness should be raised is general practitioners. They should begin by providing publicity in their surgeries about malaria and its prevalence, and also pick up cases quickly from UK citizens returning from abroad. To that end, GPs must be trained recognise the symptoms.
	I have ranged from Putney, gone around the world, and returned to Putney in an attempt to persuade the Minister to invest more in research and development in anti-malarials. Ultimately it is an equality issue. Infectious and parasitic diseases such as malaria account for 25 per cent. of the disease burden in low- and middle-income countries, compared to only 3 per cent. in high-income countries. According to the World Bank, eliminating communicable diseases would almost completely level the mortality gap between the richest 20 per cent. of the world's population and the poorest 20 per cent. We must close that gap, and do it permanently. We must not lose this opportunity.

Gareth Thomas: May I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) on securing this debate. He is an assiduous member of the International Development Committee and is also assiduous in promoting the interests of his constituents and of those who serve his constituents. In that sense, I, too, want to congratulate Professor Khrishna of St. George's hospital, and the team who work with him, on their recent success in identifying how artemisinin works. Scientists have been trying to understand that since the 1970s, so the breakthrough of Professor Khrishna's team is particularly significant. As my hon. Friend mentioned, following their breakthrough, the team are now looking at how they can take forward their research to improve the treatment of malaria, to look at other drugs, and to anticipate how resistance to malaria develops.
	My hon. Friend alluded to the fact that, despite more than 50 years of malaria control programmes, millions of people, particularly children, still die from it. It kills more than 3,000 children per daymore than 1 million per yearand 90 per cent. of those dying are in Africa. The millennium development goals represent a shared global ambition to address such challenges and to improve the well-being and life chances of the world's poorest citizens. My hon. Friend will know that the sixth of those millennium development goals is that by 2015 we should have halted and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases. He will also know that the fourth goal contains a target to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two thirds between 1990 and 2015. Alongside the target to reduce maternal mortality, that is the one that is proving hardest to achieve.
	On current trends, sub-Saharan Africa will not meet its poverty or its health millennium development goal targets, with deaths from malaria playing a huge part in that. With up to 80 per cent. resistance in some parts of Africa to chloroquine, the most widely available cheap anti-malarial drug, new approaches are needed, and they are needed fast. In addition to the wider use of insecticide-treated bed nets, new approaches to preventing death from malaria may have the single biggest impact in preventing unnecessary deaths. Other big improvements would come from routine immunisation and the introduction of new vaccines, but as my hon. Friend said, a new vaccine for malaria is still many years away. Therefore, new, good quality medicines are needed, which are accessible by poor people at affordable prices.
	The Government take that challenge particularly seriously. Following the May 2001 performance and innovation unit report on tackling diseases of poverty, the Prime Minister convened a high-level working group on increasing access to essential medicines in the developing world, which was chaired by the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short). Reporting in November 2002, the group recommended that the Government should consider policies to increase the level of UK research and development on essential medicines for poor people in the developing world.
	To take that work further forward, my Department has established a dedicated team of officials to work on access to medicines. It is also a key priority for other staff in my Department, not least our international policy department, and crucially, given the focus of my hon. Friend's debate, our research department. Given the obvious interest of other Departments across Whitehall, we work closely on this issue with the Treasury, the Department of Health, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Patent Office.
	At a global level, there have been some recent international successesfor example, at the G8 summit in Evian in 2003. As with many diseases that primarily affect poor people in developing countries, however, research and development on malaria suffers from more structural problems, as an insufficiently valuable market exists to attract private sector companies to undertake research. Although there is a so-called travellers market for anti-malarials, it is too small to offset the larger investments that are needed to bring a new drug to market: typically, we estimate that an investment of $200 million to $300 million is required to bring new drugs to market.
	Clearly, that leaves a variety of public policy options for the Government to adopt to speed up the process of developing new anti-malarial treatments. They range across advocacy on the need for new and better medicines, strongly co-ordinated international strategy and policy on the need for pro-poor research investments, direct investment in research and development, and effective measures to create greater demand for the new drugs so that an incentive is created for the private sector to invest.
	My Department already has a portfolio of work supporting malaria research and development. We are prioritising our research efforts as we review our strategy to address the millennium development goals in our new central research strategy, which is due to be announced in the first quarter of this year. Malaria and anti-malarial work will be a focus of that strategy.
	We always seek to promote an internationally coherent approach. We were instrumental in establishing the Roll Back Malaria Partnership to secure global steerage. My Department has given the partnership some 48 million over four years, and we have inputs into its strategy in order to develop an effective relationship between the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, the global fund and the World Health Organisation, as well as the other research agencies, academia, private sector groups, foundations and so forth with which the partnership works.
	We firmly believe that there should be a strong relationship between poverty-focused control activities and poverty-focused research and development strategies. My hon. Friend mentioned the link between the two.
	We make direct investments in research and development that benefit malaria treatment in several ways. Each year we give some 4 million to the Medical Research Council, in a concordat that prioritises the needs of developing countries in the research selection process. Within the overall MRC portfolio, the focus on basic clinical research that can be used to identify new drug candidates includes malaria.
	The Department also has experience of engaging more directly in partnerships with industry to take the kind of research produced by the MRC and turn it into drugs that can be used where they are needed most. Most recently we have formed a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, the WHO programme on tropical diseases research and Liverpool university to develop a cheap new drug called Lapdap, which my hon. Friend mentioned. To ensure the best possible use of that drug, further research to combine it with another drug to protect against early resistance is being undertaken, managed under an umbrella organisation called the Medicines for Malaria Venture, which my hon. Friend also mentioned and which my Department supports.
	MMV is an important and innovative organisation, which brings together collaborators from the public and private sectors and from foundations to solve the market failure problem that I described earlier. It adopts a new approach to drug development, which creates a virtual process of research and development, and manages intellectual property in favour of developing countries. Since its inception in 1999, it has demonstrated significant progress towards reaching its objective of two new drugs in the next two years. My hon. Friend asked about the resources that my Department is giving to MMV. I can confirm that we are committed to giving it some 5 million over five years.
	I mentioned the review of our research strategy; it is worth reminding the House of that. The most expensive phase of drug development is large-scale field trials in humansphase 3 trials. To raise public finance to support those trials the Government, led by the MRC, are a contributing partner in the new European venture called the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership. Launched in mid-2003, the partnership brings together EU member states, developing countries, other donors and the industry. It is one of the main achievements of the European programme for action on HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and is the largest programme of clinical trials ever targeted on Africa. I think it is a powerful example of the co-operation that can be achieved through the European Union.
	Once new drugs are available, it is important to monitor their uptake in target populations. My Department has two programmes that undertake applied and operational research on malaria in African, Asian and Latin American countries. Those focus on making sure that medicines work as they are intended to in real-life situations in developing countries, as well as investigating aspects such as compliance. That is in order to turn the availability of medicines into true access and true health gain in the countries that need it most.
	The Government are also using other more indirect methods to stimulate research, such as contributing to the global fund for HIV, TB and malaria. Global funds help to stimulate research by creating a pull effect. They pull new research into being by guaranteeing larger amounts of finance to procure new medicines when they are developed.
	I am sure that my hon. Friend will remember that the Government are implementing the research and development tax credits that were announced in the 2002 Budget. That special tax relief for companies developing drugs and medicines for TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS applies to all expenditure incurred on or after 22 April last year. As companies make claims when they complete their tax returns, they will have up to 12 months after the end of the accounting period in question to claim the tax credit. We are monitoring how successful the tax credit is in stimulating research and development into drugs for malaria, which obviously helps those most in needin this case, the poorest in Africa, where malaria is most prevalent.
	My hon. Friend alluded to specific issues, such as the prevention and treatment of malaria in the UK. He is right to point out that the NHS does not cover the costs of preventive anti-malarials, impregnated bed nets, sprays or drugs, because the mosquitoes that transmit the disease are not endemic in the UK. A person infected overseas is not, on return, infectious, so there is no public health risk. The NHS does cover the cost of care and treatment for those infected once they are at home. In comparison, the Department of Health pays for hepatitis A, polio, tetanus and typhoid, which are much more infectious when people return.
	The Government also take action to try to make people aware of the risks of malaria by providing accurate and up-to-date travel advice. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has a section on its website for advice before you go, which includes travel tips and health advice. The health section advises foreign travellers to access the Department of Health website and provides a direct link to the correct site for advice on malaria. That advice provides a list of countries where malaria is endemic, offers guidance on how to protect against malaria and on the value of discussing anti-malarial measures with doctors and encourages people to seek medical attention immediately if they feel feverish while abroad or for up to three months after their return. Travel agencies in the UK are also obliged to give advice to travellers. The Association of British Travel Agents also provides a telephone hotline service. My hon. Friend is right that more needs to be done, as we cannot relax simply because we advise people to take the appropriate precautions. The debate is helpful in stimulating awareness in that respect.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend once again on raising this matter. I know that he will continue to return to it in the coming months. I look forward to debating with him and discussing with other interested colleagues what further action we can take to make the treatment of malaria and prevention of its spread more achievable.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Eight o'clock.